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ELSIE VENNER;^ ROMANCE 

OF DESTINY 


BY 

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 


THIRTY-FIFTH EDITION 



BOSTON 

HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 
New York; 11 East Seventeenth Street 
<arbe Clibersitii: Cambribge 

1889 


TZ 5 
isr 



Copyright, 1861 and 1889, 

By OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, 

All rights reserved. 


A t 

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To Thk 




SCHOOLMISTRESS 

irno IIAS FURNISHED some outlines made use of in thesi 

PAGES AND ELSEWHERE, 


BT HER OLDEST SCHOLAR 


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PEEFACE. 


This tale was published in successive parts 
in the “Atlantic Monthly,” under the name of 
“ The Professor’s Story,” the first number hav- 
ing appeared in the third week of December 
1859. The critic who is curious in coincidences 
must refer to the Magazine for the date of pub- 
lication of the Chapter he is examining. 

In calling this narrative a “ romance,” the Au- 
thor wishes to make sure of being indulged in 
the common privileges of the poetic license. 
Through all the disguise of fiction a grave sci- 
entific doctrine may be detected lying beneath 
tsome of the delineations of character. He has 
used this doctrine as a part of the machinery 
of his story without pledging his absolute be- 
lief in it to the extent to which it is asserted 
or implied. It was adopted as a convenient 
medium of truth rather than as an accepted 
scientific conclusion. The reader must judge 


V 


PREFACE. 


for himself what is the value of various stories 
cited from old authors. He must decide how 
much of what has been told he can accept 
either as having actually happened, or as pos- 
sible and more or less probable. The Author 
must be permitted, however, to say here, in his 
personal character, and as responsible to the stu- 
dents of the human mind and body, that since 
this story has been in progress he has received 
the most startling confirmation of the possibility 
of the existence of a character like that which 
he had drawn as a purely imaginary conception 
in Elsie Venner. 


Boston, January, 1861. 


A SECOND PREFACE. 


This is the story which a dear old lady, my 
very good friend, spoke of as “a medicated 
novel,” and quite properly refused to read. I was 
always pleased with her discriminating criticism. 
It is a medicated novel, and if she wished to 
read for mere amusement and helpful recreation 
there was no need of troubling herself with a 
story written with a different end in view. 

This story has called forth so many curious in- 
quiries that it seems worth while to answer the 
more important questions which have occurred to 
its readers. 

In the first place, it is not based on any well- 
ascertained physiological fact. There are old fa- 
bles about patients who have barked like dogs or 
crowed like cocks, after being bitten or wounded 
by those animals. There is nothing impossible 
in the idea that Romulus and Remus may have 
imbibed wolfish traits of character from the wet 
nurse the legend assigned them, but the legend is 
not sound history, and the supposition is nothing 
more than a speculative fancy. Still, there is a 


VI 


A SECOND PREFACE. 


limbo of curious evidence bearing on tbe subject 
of pre-natal influences sufficient to form the start- 
ing point of an imaginative composition. 

The real aim of the story was to test the doc- 
trine of “ original sin ” and human responsibility 
for the disordered volition coming under that 
technical denomination. Was Elsie Venner, poi- 
soned by the venom of a crotalus before she was 
born, morally responsible for the “ volitional ” 
aberrations, which translated into acts become 
what is known as sin, and, it may be, what is 
punished as crime? If, on presentation of the 
evidence, she becomes by the verdict of the human 
conscience a proper object of divine pity, and not 
of divine wrath, as a subject of moral poisoning, 
wherein lies the difference between her position 
at the bar of judgment, human or divine, and 
that of the unfortunate victim who received a 
moral poison from a remote ancestor before he 
drew his first breath ? 

It might be supposed that the character of El- 
sie Venner was suggested by some of the fabulous 
personages of classical or mediaeval story. I re- 
member that a French critic spoke of her as cette 
fauvre Melusine, I ought to have been ashamed, 
perhaps, but I had not the slightest idea who 
Melusina was until I hunted up the story, and 
found that she was a fairy, who for some offence 


A SECOND PREFACE. 


vii 

was changed every Saturday to a serpent from her 
waist downward. I was of course familiar with 
Keats’s Lamia, another imaginary being, the sub- 
ject of magical transformation into a serpent# 
My story was well advanced before Hawthorne’s 
wonderful “ Marble Faun,” which might be 
thought to have furnished me with the hint of a 
mixed nature, — human, with an alien element, — 
was published or known to me. So that my poor 
heroine found her origin, not in fable or romance, 
but in a physiological conception, fertilized by a 
theological dogma. 

I had the dissatisfaction of enjoying from a 
quiet corner a well-meant effort to dramatize “ El- 
sie Venner.” Unfortunately, a physiological ro- 
mance, as I knew beforehand, is hardly adapted 
for the melodramatic efforts of stage representa- 
tion. I can therefore say, with perfect truth, that 
I was not disappointed. It is to the mind, and 
not to the senses, that such a story must appeal, 
and all attempts to render the character and 
events objective on the stage, or to make them 
real by artistic illustrations, are almost of neces- 
sity failures. The story has won the attention 
and enjoyed the favor of a limited class of read- 
ers, and if it still continues to interest others of 
the same tastes and habits of thought I can ask 
nothing more of it. 

January 23, 1883. 


Tff 



CONTENTS 


CHAPTER I. 

tHE BRAHMIN CASTE OP NETV” ENGLAND . 

CHAPTER II. 

THE STUDENT AND HIS CERTIFICATE 

CHAPTER III. 

MR. BERNARD TRIES HIS HAND 

CHAPTER IV. 

THE MOTH FLIES INTO THE CANDLE 

CHAPTER V. 


p.f* 

13 

20 

37 

60 


AN OLD-FASHIONED DESCRIPTIVE CHAPTER ... 74 

CHAPTER VI. 

THE SUNBEAM AND THE SHADOW 93 

CHAPTER VII. 

THE EVENT OP THE SEASON 106 

CHAPTER VIII. 

THE MORNING AFTER 151 

CHAPTER IX. 


THE DOCTOR ORDERS THE BEST SULKY i’wiTH A DIGRES- 
SION ON “hired help”) . . ... 170 


i: 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER X. 

Psf« 

THE DOCTOR CALLS ON ELSIE VENNER . . t .176 

CHAPTER XI. 

COUSIN Richard’s tisit . TSS 

CHAPTER XII. 

THE APOLLINEAN INSTITUTE (wiTII EXTRACTS FROM TUB 

"report op the committee”) 206 

CHAPTER XIII. 

CURIOSITY 223 

CHAPTER XIV. 

FAMILY SECRETS 240 

CHAPTER XV. 

PHYSIOLOGICAL . 253 

CHAPTER XVI. 

EPISTOLARY . . . 272 

CHAPTER XVII. 

OLD SOPHY CALLS ON THE REVEREND DOCTOR . . 289 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

IHE REVEREND DOCTOR CALLS ON BROTHER FAIR- 
■VPEATUER 31 ' 

CHAPTER XIX. 

IHE SPIDER ON HIS THREAD 329 

CHAPTER XX. 

mOM WITHOUT AND FROM WITHIN .... 3.3* 


CONTENTS, 


XI 


CHAPTER XXI. 

THE WIDOW ROWEKS GIVES A TEA-PARTY 

CHAPTER XXII. 

WHT DOCTORS DIFFER 

CHAPTER XXIII. 

THE WILD HUNTSMAN 

CHAPTER XXIV. 

ON HIS TRACKS 

CHAPTER XXV. 

THE PERILOUS HOUR 

CHAPTER XXVI. 

THE NEWS REACHES THE DUDLEY MANSION 

CHAPTER XXVII. 

A SOUL IN DISTRESS 

CHAPTER XXVIII. 

THE SECRET IS WHISPERED . . . . 

CHAPTER XXIX. 

THE WHITE ASH 

CHAPTER XXX. 

THE GOLDEN CORD IS LOOSED . . . . 

CHAPTER XXXI. 

HE. SILAS PECKHAM RENDERS HIS ACCOUNT . 

CHAPTER XXXII. 


Page 
. 353 

. 387 

. 406 

. 423 

. 438 

. 469 

. 492 

. 505 

. 537 

. 550 

. 570 


CONOLUSIOM 


59 


ELSIE VENNER. 


CHAPTER 1. 

THE BRAHMIN CASTE OF NEW ENGLAND. 

There is nothing in New England correspond* 
ing at all to the feudal aristocracies of the Old 
World. Whether it be owing to the stock from 
which we were derived, or to the practical work- 
ing of our institutions, or to the abrogation of the 
technical “law of honor,’’ which draws a sharp 
line between the personally responsible class of 
“ gentlemen ” and the unnamed multitude of 
those who are not expected to risk their lives for 
an abstraction, — whatever be the cause, we have 
no such aristocracy here as that which grew up 
out of the military systems of the IMiddle Ages. 

What we mean by “ aristocracy ” is merely the 
richer part of the community, that live in the 
tallest houses, drive real carriages, (not “ker- 
tidges,”) kid-glove their hands, and French-bon- 
net their ladies’ heads, give parties where the 
oersons who call them by the above title are not 
nvited, and have a provokingly easy way of 


14 


ELSIE VENNER. 


dressing, walking, talking, and nodding i-o peo 
pie, as if they felt entirely at home, and would 
not be embarrassed in the least, if they met the 
Governor, or even the President of the United 
States, face to face. Some of these great folks 
are really well-bred, some of them are only purse- 
proud and assuming, — but they form a class, 
and are named as above in the common speech. 

It is in the nature of large fortunes to diminish 
rapidly, when subdivided and distributed. A 
million is the unit of wealth, now ^nd here in 
America. It splits into four handsome proper- 
ties ; each of these into four good inheritances ; 
these, again, into scanty competences for four 
ancient maidens, — with whom it is best the fam- 
ily should die out, unless it can begin again as 
its great-grandfather did. Now a million is a 
kind of golden cheese, which represents in a com- 
pendious form the summer’s growth of a fat 
meadow of craft or commerce ; and as this kind 
of meadow rarely bears more than one crop, it is 
pretty certain that sons and grandsons will not 
get another golden cheese out of it, whether they 
milk the same cows or turn in new ones. In 
other words, the millionocracy, considered in a 
large way, is not at all an affair of persons and 
families, but a perpetual fact of money with a 
variable human element, which a philosopher 
might leave out of consideration without falling 
into serious error. Of course, this trivial and 
fugitive fact of personal wealth does not create a 


ELSIE VENNER. 


15 


permanent class, unless some special means are 
taken to arrest the process of disintegration in 
the third generation. This is so rarely done, at 
least successfully, that one need not live a very 
long life to see most of the rich families he knew 
in childhood more or less reduced, and the mil- 
lions! shifted into the hands of the country-boys 
who were sweeping stores and carrying parcels 
when the now decayed gentry were driving their 
chariots, eating their venison over silver chafing- 
dishes, drinking Madeira chilled in embossed 
coolers, wearing their hair in powder, and casing 
their legs in long boots with silken tassels. 

There is, however, in New England, an aris- 
tocracy, if you choose to call it so, which has a 
far greater character of permanence. It has 
grown to be a caste^ — not in any odious sense, — 
but, by the repetition of the same influences, gen- 
eration after generation, it has acquired a distinct 
organization and physiognomy, which not to 
recognize is mere stupidity, and not to be willing 
to describe would show a distrust of the good- 
nature and intelligence of our readers, who like 
to have us see all we can and tell all we see. 

If you will look carefully at any class of stu- 
dents in one of our colleges, you will have no 
difficulty in selecting specimens Of two different 
lispccts of youthful manhood. Of course I shall 
ehoose extreme cases to illustrate the contrast be- 
tween them. In the first, the figure is perhaps 
©bust, but often otherwise. — inelegant, partly 


J6 


ELSIE VENDER. 


from careless attitudes, partly from ill-'dressing, — 
the face is uncouth in feature, or at least com* 
mon, — the mouth coarse and unformed, — the 
eye unsympathetic, even if. bright, — the move- 
ments of the face are clumsy, like those of the 
limbs, — the voice is unmusical, — and the enun- 
ciation as if the words were coarse castings, in- 
etead of fine carvings. The youth of the other 
aspect is commonly slender, — his face is smooth, 
and apt to be pallid, — his features are regular 
and of a certain delicacy, — his eye is bright and 
quick, — his lips play over the thought he utters as 
a pianist’s fingers dance over their music, — and 
his whole air, though it may be timid, and even 
awkward, has nothing clownish. If you are a 
teacher, you know what to expect from each of 
these young men. With equal willingness, the 
first will be slow at learning ; the second will 
take to his books as a pointer or a setter to his 
field-work. 

The first youth is the common country-boy, 
whose race has been bred to bodily labor. Na- 
ture has adapted the family organization to the 
kind of life it has lived. The hands and feet by 
constant use have got more than their share of 
development, — the organs of thought and ex- 
pression less than their share. The finer instincts 
are latent and must be developed. A youth of 
this kind is raw material in its first stage of elab. 
oration. You must not expect too much of any 
«uch. Many of them have force of will anc 


ELSIE VENNER. 


17 


character, and become distinguished in practical 
life; but very few of them ever become great 
scholars. A scholar is, in a large proportion of 
cases, the son of scholars or scholarly persons. 

That is exactly what the other young man is. 
He comes of the Brahmin caste of Neio Eng 
land. This is the harmless, inoffensive, untitled 
aristocracy referred to, and which many readers 
will at once acknowledge. There are races of 
scholars among us, in which aptitude for learn- 
ing, and all these marks of it I have spoken 
of, are congenital and hereditary. Their names 
are always on some college catalogue or other. 
They break out every generation or two in some 
learned labor which calls them up after they 
seem to have died out. At last some newer 
name takes their place, it may be, — but you 
inquire a little and you find it is the blood of 
the Edwardses or the Chauncys or the Ellerys 
or some of the old historic scholars, disguised 
under the altered name of a female descendant. 

There probably is not an experienced instructor 
anywhere in our Northern States who will not 
recognize at once the truth of this general dis- 
tinction. But the reader who has never been a 
teacher will very probably object, that some of 
our most illustrious public men have come direct 
from the homespun-clad class of the people,-— 
and he may, perhaps, even find a noted scholai 
or two whose parents were masters of the Eng' 
Ush alphabet, but of no other. 

2 


VOL. 1. 


18 


ELSIE VENNER. 


It is not fair to pit a few chosen families 
against the great multitude of those who are 
continually working their way up into the intel- 
lectual classes. The results which are habitually 
reached by hereditary training are occasionally 
brought about without it. There are natural 
filters as well as artificial ones ; and thougli the 
great rivers are commonly more or less turbid, 
if you will look long enough, you may find a 
spring that sparkles as no water does which drips 
through your apparatus of sands and sponges. 
So there are families which refine themselves into 
intellectual aptitude without having had much 
opportunity for intellectual acquirements. A se- 
ries of felicitous crosses develops an improved 
strain of blood, and reaches its maximum perfec- 
tion at last in the large uncombed youth who 
goes to college and startles the hereditary class- 
leaders by striding past them all. That is Na- 
ture’s republicanism ; thank God for it, but do 
not let it make you illogical. The race of the 
hereditary scholar has exchanged, a certain por- 
tion of its animal vigor for its new instincts, and 
it is hard to lead men without a good deal of ani- 
mal vigor. The scholar who comes by Nature’s 
special grace from an unworn stock of broad- 
chested sires and deep-bosomed mothers must 
always overmatch an equal intelligence with a 
LX)mpromised and lowered vitality. A man’s 
breathing and digestive apparatus (one is tempt- 
ed to add muscular) are just as important to hin 


ELSIE VENNER. 


19 


0 n the floor of the Senate as his thinking organs. 
Y'ou broke down in your great speech, did you ? 
Yes, your grandfather had an attack of dyspepsia 
in ’82, after working too hard on his famous Elec- 
tion Sermon. All this does not touch the main 
act : our scholars come chiefly from a privileged 
order, just as our best fruits come from well- 
known grafts, — though now and then a seedling 
apple, like the Northern Spy, or a seedling pear, 
like the Seckel, springs from a nameless ancestry 
and grows to be the pride of all the gardens in 
the land. 

Let me introduce you to a young man who b©< 
longs to the Brahmin caste of New England. 


ELSIE VENNER. 


HO 


CHAPTER n. 

THE STUDENT AND HIS CERTIFICATE, 

Bernard C. Langdon, a young man attending 
Medical Lectures at the school connected with 
one of our principal colleges, remained after the 
Lecture one day and wished to speak with the 
Professor. He was a student of mark, — first 
favorite of his year, as they say of the Derby 
colts. There are in every class half a dozen 
bright faces to which the teacher naturally directs 
his discourse, and by the intermediation of whose 
attention he seems to hold that of the mass of 
listeners. Among these some one is pretty sure 
to take the lead, by virtue of a personal magnet- 
ism, or some peculiarity of expression, which 
places the face in quick sympathetic relations 
with the lecturer. This was a young man with 
Buch a face ; and I found, — for you have guessed 
that I was the “ Professor ” above-mentioned, — 
that; when there was anything difficult to be ex- 
plained, or when I was bringing out some favor- 
*te illustration of a nice point, (as, for instance 
when I compared the cell-growth, by which Na- 
ture builds up a plant or an animal, to the glass- 


EI.SIE VENNER 


21 


blower’s similar mode of beginning, — always 
with a hollow sphere, or vesicle, whatever he is 
going to make,) I naturally looked in his face 
and gauged my success by its expression. 

It was a handsome face, — a little too pale, 
perhaps, and would have borne something more 
of fulness without becoming heavy. I put the 
organization to which it belongs in Section B of 
Class 1 of my Anglo-American Anthropology 
(unpublished). The jaw in this section is but 
slightly naiTOwed, — just enough to make the 
width of the forehead tell more decidedly. The 
moustache often grows vigorously, but the whis- 
kers are thin. The skin is like that of Jacob, 
rather than like Esau’s. One string of the ani- 
mal nature has been taken away, but this gives 
only a greater predominance to the intellectual 
chords. To see just how the vital energy has 
been toned down, you must contrast one of this 
section with a specimen of Section A of the 
same class, — say, for instance, one of the old- 
fashioned, full-whiskered, red-faced, roaring, big 
Commodores of the last generation, whom you 
remember, at least by their portraits, in ruffled 
shirts, looking as hearty as butchers and as plucky 
as bull-terriers, with their hair combed straight up 
from their foreheads, which were not commonly 
very high or broad. The special form of physical 
life I have been describing gives you a right to 
expect more delicate perceptions and a more 
reflective nature than you commonlv find in 


ELSIE VENNER. 


Bhaggy-throated men, clad in heavy suits of mus* 
ties. 

The student lingered in the lecture-room, look- 
ing all the time as if he wanted to say something 
in private, and waiting for two or three others, 
who were stUl hanging about, to be gone. 

Something is wrong ! — I said to myself, when 
I noticed bis expression. — Well, Mr. Langdon, 
— I said to him, when we were alone, — can I do 
anything for you to-day ? 

You can, Sh*, — he said. — I am going to leave 
the class, for the present, and keep school. 

Why, that’s a pity, and you so near graduat- 
ing! You’d better stay and finish this course, 
and take your degree in the spring, rather than 
break up your whole plan of study. 

I can’t help myself. Sir, — the young man an- 
swered. — There’s trouble at home, and they can- 
not keep me here as they have done. So I must 
look out for myself for a while. It ’s what I ’ve 
done before, and am ready to do again. I came 
to ask you for a certificate of my fitness to teach 
a common school, or a high school, if you think 
I am up to that. Are you willing to give it to 
me ? 

Willing ? Yes, to be sure, — but I don’t want 
you to go. Stay ; we ’ll make it easy for you 
There ’s a fund will do something for you, per 
haps. Then you can take both the annual prizes 
if you like, — and claim them in money, if you 
want that more than medals. 


ELSIE VENNER. 


23 


I have thought it all over, — he answered,— 
and have pretty much made up my mind to go. 

A perfectly gentlemanly young man, of cour- 
teous address and mild utterance, but means at 
least as much as he says. There are some people 
whose rhetoric consists of a slight habitual under- 
fftatement. I often tell Mrs. Professor that one of 
her I think it ’s sos ” is worth the Bible-oath of all 
the rest of the household that they “know it’s 
so.” When you find a person a little better than 
his word, a little more liberal than his promise, a 
little more than borne out in his statement by his 
facts, a little larger in deed than in speech, you 
recognize a kind of eloquence in that person’s 
utterance not laid down in Blair or Campbell. 

This was a proud fellow, self- trusting, sensitive, 
with family-recollections that made him unwill- 
ing to accept the kind of aid which many stu- 
dents would have thankfully welcomed. I knew 
him too well to urge him, after the few words 
which implied that he was determined to go. 
Besides, I have great confidence in young men 
who believe in themselves, and are accustomed to 
rely on their own resources from an early period. 
When a resolute^ young fellow steps up to the 
great bully, the World, and takes him boldly by 
the beard, he is often surprised to find it come off 
in his hand, and that it was only tied on to scare 
away timid adventurers. I have seen young men 
more than once, who came to a great city without 
a single friend, support themselves and pay fol 




ELSIE VENNER. 


theii education, lay up money in a few years, 
grow rich enough to travel, and establish them- 
selves in life, without ever asking a dollar of any 
person which they had not earned. But these are 
exceptional cases. There are horse-tamers, born 
BO, as we all know ; there are woman-tamers who 
bewitch the sex as the pied piper bedeviled the 
children of Hamelin ; and there are world-tamers, 
who can make any community, even a Yankee 
one, get down and let them jump on its back as 
easily as Mr. Rarey saddled Cruiser. 

Whether Langdon was of this sort or not I 
could not say positively ; but he had spirit, and, 
as I have said, a family-pride which would not 
let him be dependent. The New England Brah- 
min caste often gets blended with connections of 
political influence or commercial distinction. It 
is a charming thing for the scholar, when his for- 
tune carries him in this way into some of the 
“ old families ” who have fine old houses, and city- 
lots that have risen in the market, and names 
written in all the stock-books of all the dividend- 
paying companies. His narrow study expands 
into a stately library, his books are counted by 
thousands instead of hundreds, and his favorites 
are dressed in gilded calf in place of plebeian 
sheepskin or its pauper substitutes of cloth and 
paper. 

The Reverend Jedediah Langdon, grandfather 
of our young gentleman, had made an advan* 
tageous alliance of this kind. Miss Dorothea 


ELSIE VENNEU. 


25 


Wentworth had read one of his sermons which 
had been printed “ by request/’ and became 
deeply interested in the young author, whom 
she had never seen. Out of this circumstance 
grew a correspondence, an interview, a dec- 
laration, a matrimonial alliance, and a family 
of half a dozen children. Wentworth Lang- 
don, Esquire, was the oldest of these, and 
lived in the old family-mansion. Unfortunately, 
that principle of the diminution of estates by 
division, to which I have referred, rendered 
it somewhat difficult to maintain the estab- 
lishment upon the fractional income which the 
proprietor received from his share of the prop- 
erty. Wentworth Langdon, Esq., represented 
a certain intermediate condition of life not at 
all infrequent in our old families. He was the 
connecting link between the generation which 
lived in ease, and even a kind of state, upon its 
own resources, and the new brood, which must 
live mainly by its wits or industry, and make it- 
self rich, or shabbily subside into that lower stra- 
tum known to social geologists by a deposit of 
Kidderminster carpets and the peculiar aspect 
pf the fossils constituting the family fm'niture 
and wardrobe. This slack-water period of a 
race, which comes before the rapid ebb of its 
prosperity, is familiar to all who live in cities. 
There are no more quiet, inoffensive people than 
these children of rich families, just above the ne- 
tessity of active employment, yet not in a condi- 


ELSIE VENNER 


B6 

tion to place their own children advantageously 
if they happen to have families. Many of them 
are content to live unmarried. Some mend theii 
broken fortunes by prudent alliances, and some 
leave a numerous progeny to pass into the obscu- 
rity from which their ancestors emerged ; so that 
you may see on handcarts and cobblers’ stalls 
names which, a few generations back, were upon 
parchments with broad seals, and tombstones with 
armorial bearings. 

In a large city, this class of citizens is familiar 
to us in the streets. They are very courteous in 
their salutations ; they have time enough to bow 
and take their hats off, — which, of course, no 
business-man can afford to do. Their beavers are 
smoothly brushed, and their boots well polished; 
all their appointments are tidy ; they look the re- 
spectable walking gentleman to perfection. They 
are prone to habits, — they frequent reading-rooms, 
insurance-offices, — they walk the same streets at 
the same hours, — so that one becomes familiar 
with their faces and persons, as a part of the 
street-furniture. 

There is one curious circumstance, that all city- 
people must have noticed, which is often illus 
trated in our experience of the slack-water gentry 
We shall know a certain person by his looks, fa 
miliarly, for years, but never have learned hia 
name. About this person^ we shall have accumu 
lated no little circumstantial knowledge ; — thus 
^is face, figure, gait, his mode of dressing, of sa 


ELSIE VENNER. 


27 


luting, perhaps even of speaking, may be familial 
to us ; yet who he is we know not. In another 
department of our consciousness, there is a very 
familiar name^ which we have never found the per'* 
son to match. We have heard it so often, that it 
has idealized itself, and become one of that mul* 
titude of permanent shapes which walk the cham 
bers of the brain in velvet slippers in the company 
of Falstaff and Hamlet and General Washington 
and Mr. Pickwick. Sometimes the person dies, 
but the name lives on indefinitely. But now and 
then it happens, perhaps after years of this inde- 
pendent existence of the name and its shadowy 
image in the brain, on the one part, and the per- 
son and all its real attributes, as we see them 
daily, on the other, that some accident reveals 
their relation, and we find the name we have car- 
ried so long in our memory belongs to the person 
we have known so long as a fellow-citizen. Now 
the slack-water gentry are among the persons 
most likely to be the subjects of this curious di- 
vorce of title and reality, — for the reason, that, 
playing no important part in the community, there 
is nothing to tie the floating name to the actual 
individual, as is the case with the men who belong 
m any way to the public, while yet their names 
have a certain historical currency, and we cannot 
help meeting them, either in their haunts, or going 
to and from them. 

To ihis class belonged Wentworth Langdon, 
Esq. He had been “ dead-headed ” into the world 


18 


ELSIE VENNER. 


Rome fifty years ago, and had sat with his hands 
in his pockets staring at the show ever since. 1 
shall not tell you, for reasons before hinted, the 
whole name of the pfL.ace in which he lived. I 
will only point you in the right direction, by say 
mg that there are three towns lying in a line with 
each other, as you go ‘‘ down East,’’ each of them 
with a Port in its name, and each of them having 
a peculiar interest which gives it individuality, in 
addition to the Oriental character they have in 
common. I need not tell you that these towns 
are Newburyport, Portsmouth, and Portland. The 
Oriental character they have in common consists 
in their large, square, palatial mansions, with sun- 
ny gardens round them. The two first have seen 
better days. They are in perfect harmony with 
the condition of weakened, but not impoverished, 
gentility. Each of them is a “ paradise of demi- 
fortunes.” Each of them is of that intermedi- 
ate size between a village and a city which 
any place has outgrown when the presence of a 
well-dressed stranger walking up and down the 
.main street ceases to be a matter of public curi- 
osity and private speculation, as frequently hap 
pens, during the busier months of the year, i 
'considerable commercial centres like Salem 
They both have grand old recollections to fall 
back upon, — times when they looked forwarc 
to commercial greatness, and when the portlj/ 
gentlemen in cocked hats, who built their no'W 
decaying wharves and sent out their ships all ove* 


ELSIE VENNEK. 


25 


Ihe world; dreamed that their fast-growing port 
was to be the Tyre or the Carthage of the rich 
British Colony. Great houses, like that once 
lived in by Lord Timothy Dexter, in Newbury- 
port, remain as evidence of the fortunes amassed 
in these places of old. Other mansions — like 
the Rockingham House in Portsmouth (look at 
the white horse’s tail before you mount the broad 
staircase) show that there was not only wealth, 
but style and state, in these quiet old towns dur- 
ing the last century. It is not with any thought 
of pity or depreciation that we speak of them as 
in a certain sense decayed towns ; they did not 
fulfil their early promise of expansion, but they 
remain incomparably the most interesting places 
of tiveir size in any of the three northernmost 
New England States. They have even now pros- 
perity enough to keep them in good condition, and 
offer the most aitractive residences for quiet fami- 
lies, which, if they had been English, would have 
lived in a palazzo at Genoa or Pisa, or some other 
Continental Newburyport or Portsmouth. 

As for the last of the three Ports-; or Portland, 
't is getting too prosperous to be as attractive 
as its less northerly neighbors. Meant for u fine 
old town, to ripen like a Cheshire cheese within 
its walls of ancient rind, burrowed by crooked 
alleys and mottled with venerable mould, it 
seems likely to sacrifice its mellow future to a 
vulgar material prosperity. Still it remains in- 
fested with many of its old charms, as yet, and 


50 


ELSIE VENNER. 


mil forfeit its place among this admirable trio 
only when it gets a hotel with unequivocal 
marks of having been built and organized in 
the present century. 

It was one of the old square palaces of 

the North, in which Bernard Langdon, the son 
of Wentworth, was born. If he had had the 
uck to be an only child, he might have lived 
as his father had done, letting his meagre com- 
petence smoulder on almost without consuming, 
like the fuel in an air-tight stove. But after 
Master Bernard came Miss Dorothea Elizabeth 
Wentworth Langdon, and then Master William 
Peppereli Langdon, and others, equally well 
named, — a string of them, looking, when they 
stood in a row in prayer-time, as if they ivbuld 
fit a set of Pandean pipes, of from kHree feet 
upward in dimensions. The dooi* of the air- 
tight stove has to be opened, u.’ider such circum- 
stances, you may well suppose I So it happened 
that our young man had been obliged, from an 
early period, to do something to support himself, 
and found himself stopped short in his studies 
by the inability of the good people at home to 
piniish him the present means of support as a 
student. 

You will understand now why the young man 
wanted me to give him a certificate of his fit- 
ness to teach, and why I did not choose to urge 
him to accept the aid which a meek country 
boy from a family without ante-Revolutionar^ 


ELSIE VENNER 


3 \ 


jecollections would have thankfully received. Go 
he must, — that was plain enough. He would 
not be content otherwise. He was net, how- 
ever, to give up his studies ; and as it is cus- 
tomary to allow half-time to students engaged 
in school-keeping, — that is, to count a year, so 
employed, if the student also keep on with his 
professional studies, as equal to six months of 
the three years he is expected to be under an 
instructor before applying for his degree, — he 
would not necessarily lose more than a few 
months of time. He had a small library of pro- 
fessional books, which he could take with him. 

So he left my teaching and that of my estima- 
ble colleagues, carrying with him my certificate, 
that Mr. Bernard C. Langdon was a young gen- 
tleman of excellent moral character, of high in- 
telligence and good education, and that his ser 
vices would be of great value in any school 
academy, or other institution, where young per- 
sons of either sex were to be instructed. 

I confess, that expression, “ either sex,” ran a 
fittle thick, as I may say, from my pen. For, 
although the young man bore a very fair char- 
acter, and there was no special cause for doubt- 
ing his discretion, I considered him altogethei 
too good-looking, in the first place, to be let loose 

a room-full of young girls. I didn’t want him 
to fall in love just then, — and if half a dozen 
girls fell in love with him, as they most assuredly 
would, if brought into too near relations with 


B2 ELSIE VEX^’ER. 

him, why, there was no telling what gratitude 
and natural sensibility might bring about. 

Certificates are, for the most part, like ostrich- 
eggs ; the giver never knows what is hatched out 

them. But once in a thousand times they act 
a^s curses are said to, — come home to roost. Give 
them often enough, until it gets to be a mechanical 
business, and, some day or other, you will get 
caught warranting somebody’s ice not to melt in 
any climate, or somebody’s razors to be safe in 
the hands of the youngest children. 

I had an uneasy feeling, after giving this cer- 
tificate. It might be all right enough ; but if it 
happened to end badly, I should always reproach 
myself. There was a chance, certainly, that it 
would lead him or others into danger or wretch- 
edness. Any one who looked at this young man 
could not fail to see that he was capable of 
fascinating and being fascinated. Those large, 
dark eyes of his would sink into the white soul 
of a young girl as the black cloth sunk into the 
snow in Franklin’s famous experiment. Or, on 
the other hand, if the rays of a passionate nature 
should ever be concentrated on them, they would 
be absorbed into the very depths of his nature 
and then his blood would turn to flame and burn 
his life out of him, until his cheeks grew as white 
as the ashes that cover a burning coal. 

I wish I had not said either sex in my certificate 
An academy for young gentlemen, now; tha 
sounds cool and unimaginative, A boys’ school 


KLSIE VENNER. 


S3 


that would be a very good place for him ; — some 
of them are pretty rough, but there is nerve 
enough in that old Wentworth strain of blood ; 
he can give any country fellow, of the common 
stock, twenty pounds, and hit him out of time in 
ten minutes. But to send such a young fellow 
as that out a girPs-nesting ! to give this falcon a 
free pass into all the dove-cotes ! I was a fool, 
— that’s all. 

I brooded over the mischief which might come 
out of these two words until it seemed to me 
that they were charged with destiny. I could 
hardly sleep for thinking what a train I might 
have been laying, which might take a spark any 
day, and blow up nobody knows whose peace oi 
prospects. What I ireaded most was one of 
those miserable matrimonial misalliances where 
a young fellow who does not know himself as 
yet flings his magnificent future into the checked 
apron-lap of some fresh-faced, half-bred country- 
girl, no more fit to be mated with him than hei 
father’s horse to go in double harness with Flora 
Temple. To think of the eagle’s wings being 
clipped so that he shall never lift himself over the 
farm-yard fence ! Such things happen, and al- 
ways must, — because, as one of us said awhile 
ago, a man always loves a woman, and a woman 
a man, unless some good reason exists to the 
contrary. You think yourself a very fastidious 
young man, my friend ; but there are probably at 
least five thousand young women in tnese United 


* 


84 


ELSIE VENNEK. 


States, any one of whom you would certainly 
marry, if you were tnrown much into her corn* 
pany, and nobody more attractive were near, and 
jihe had no objection. And you, my dear young 
lady, justly pride yourself on your discerning del* 
icacy ; but if I should say that there are twenty 
thousand young men, any one of whom, if he 
offered his hand and heart under favorable cir- 
cumstances, you would 

“ First endure, then pity, then embrace,” 

1 should be much more imprudent than I mean 
to be, and you would, no doubt, throw down a 
story in which I hope to interest you. 

I had settled it in my mind that this young 
fellow had a career marked out for him. He 
should begin in the natural way, by taking care 
of poor patients in one of the public charities, 
and work his way up to a better kind of practice, 
— better, that is, in the vulgar, worldly sense. 
The great and good Boerhaave used to say, as 
[ remember very well, that the poor were his best 
patients ; for God was their paymaster. But 
everybody is not as patient as Boerhaave, nor as 
deserving ; so that the rich, though not, perhaps, 
the best patients, are good enough for common 
practitioners. I suppose Boerhaave put up with 
them when he could not get poor ones, as he left 
bis daughter two millions of florins when he died 

Now if this young man once got into the wide 
ttreetSf he would sweep them clear of his rivals o 


ELSIE VENNER. 


35 


♦ he same standing; and as I was getting indif- 
ferent to business, and old Dr. Kilham was grow- 
ing caielcss, and had once or twice prescribe:^ 
morphine when he meant quinine, there would 
soon be an opening into the Doctor’s Paradise, 
— the stieets with only one side to them. Then 1 
would have him strike a bold stroke, — set up a 
nice little coach, and be driven round like a first- 
class London doctor, instead of coasting about 
in a shabby one-horse concern and casting anchor 
opposite his patients’ doors like a Cape- Ann fish- 
ing-smack. By the time he was thirty, he would 
have knocked the social pawns out of his way, 
and be ready to challenge a wife from the row of 
great pieces in the background. I would not have 
a man marry above his level, so as to become the 
appendage of a powerful family-connection ; but 
I would not have him marry until he knew his 
level, — that is, again, looking at the matter in a 
purely worldly point of view, and not taking the 
sentiments at all into consideration. But remem- 
ber, that a young man, using large endowments 
wisely and fortunately, may put himself on a 
level with the highest in the land in ten brilliant 
years of spirited, unflagging labor. And to stand 
it the very top of your calling in a great city is 
something in itself, — that is, if you like money 
and influence, and a seat on the platform at pub- 
lic lectures, and gratuitous tickets to all sorts ol 
places where you don’t want to go, and, what 
js a good deal better than any of these things, a 


56 


ELSIE VENNEIl. 


sense of power, limited, it may be, but absolute 
in its range, so that all the Caesars and Napoleons 
would have to stand aside, if they came between 
you and the exercise of your special vocation. 

That is what I thought this young fellow might 
have come to ; and now I have let him go off into 
the country with my certificate, that he is fit to 
teach in a school for either sex ! Ten to one he 
will run like a moth into a candle, right into one 
of those girls^-nests, and get tangled up in some 
sentimental folly or other, and there will be the 
end of him. Oh, yes ! country doctor, — half a 
dollar a visit, — drive, drive, drive all day, — get 
up at night and harness your own horse, — drive 
again ten miles in a snow-storm, — shake powders 
out of two phials, (pulv. glycyrrhiz.^ pulu. gum, 
acac, dd partes equates^) — drive back again, if j'ou 
don’t happen to get stuck in a drift, — no home, 
no peace, no continuous meals, no unbroken 
sleep, no Sunday, no holiday, no social inter- 
course, but one eternal jog, jog, jog, in a sulky, 
until you feel like the mummy of an Indian who 
had been buried in the sitting posture, and wag 
dug up a hundred years afterwards! Why didn’t 
[ warn him about love and all that nonsense? 
Why didn’t I teU him he had nothing to do with 
ic, yet awhile ? Why didn’t I hold up to him 
those awful examples I could have cited, where 
poor young fellows who could just keep them« 
selves afloat have hung a matrimonial millston 
^ound their necks, taking it for a life-preserver? 

All this nf two words in a certificate ! 


ELSIE 7ENNER. 


57 


CHAPTER III. 

MR. BERNARD TRIES HIS HAND. 

"Whether the Student advertised for a school, 
ar whether he fell in with the advertisement of a 
Bchool-committee, is not certain. At any rate, it 
was not long before he found himself the head of 
a large district, or, as it was called by the inhab- 
itants, “ deestric ” school, in the flourishing inland 
village of Pequawkett, or, as it is commonly 
spelt, Pigwacket Centi’e. The natives of this 
place would be surprised, if they should hear 
that any of the readers of a work published in 
Boston were unacquainted with so remarkable a 
locality. As, however, some copies of it may be 
read at a distance from this distinguished me- 
ti’opolis, it may be weU to give a few particulars 
respecting the place, taken from the Universal 
Gazetteer. 

“ Pigwacket, sometimes spelt Pequawkett. A post-village 

ind township in Co., State of , situated in a fine agri- 

tultural region, 2 thriving villages, Pigwacket Centre and 
Smithville, 3 churches, several school-houses, and many hand- 
jome private residences. Mink River runs through the town, 
navigable for small boats after heavy rains. Muddy Pond al 


B8 


ELSIE VENNER. 


N. E. section, well stocked with horn pouts, eels, and shmera 
Products, beef, pork, butter, cheese. Manufactures, shoe-pegs, 
clothes-pins, and tin-ware. Pop. 1373.” 

The reader may think there is nothing very 
remarkable implied in this description. K, how- 
ever, he had read the town-history, by the Kev 
Jabez Grubb, he would have learned, that, like 
the celebrated Little Pedlington, ‘it was distin- 
guished by many very remarkable advantages. 
Thus ; — 

“ The situation of Pigwacket is eminently beautiful, looking 
down the lovely valley of Mink River, a tributary of the Mus- 
quash. The air is salubrious, and many of the inhabitants 
have attained great age, several having passed the allotted 
period of ‘ three-score years and ten ’ before succumbing to 
any of the various ‘ ills that flesh is heir to.* Widow Comfort 
Leevins died in 1836, Mt. LXXXVII. years. Venus, an 
African, died in 1841, supposed to be C. years old. The pex)- 
ple are distinguished for intelligence, as has been frequently 
remarked by eminent lyceum-lecturers, who have invariably 
spoken in the highest terms of a Pigwacket audience. There 
is a public library, containing nearly a hundred volumes, free 
to all subscribers. The preached word is well attended, there 
b a flourishing temperance society, and the schools are excel- 
lent. It is a residence admirably adapted to refined families 
who relish the beauties of Nature and the charms of society. 
The Honorable John Smith, formerly a member of the State 
Senate, was a native of this town.” 

That is the way they all talk. After all, it is 
probably pretty much like other inland New Eng- 
land towns in point of “salubrity,” — that is, givei 
people their choice of dysentery or fever every ait 


ELSIE VENNER. 


39 


tumn, with a season-ticket for consumption, good 
all the year round. And so of the other pretences 
^Pigwacket audience,’’ forsooth! Was there ever 
an audience anywhere, though there wasn’t a pail 
of eyes in it brighter than pickled oysters, that 
didn’t think it was “ distinguished for intelli 
gence ” ? — “ The preached word ” ! That mean? 
the Rev. Jabez Grubb’s sermons. “ Temperance 
society ” ! “ Excellent schools ” ! Ah, that is just 
what we were talking about. 

The truth was, that District No. 1, Pigwacket 
Centre, had had a good deal of trouble of late 
with its schoolmasters. The committee had done 
their best, but there were a number of well-grown 
and pretty rough young fellows who had got the 
upperhand of the masters, and meant to keep it. 
Two dynasties had fallen before the uprising of 
this fierce democracy. This was a thing that 
used to be not very uncommon ; but in so “ in- 
telligent ” a community as that of Pigwacket 
Centre, in an era of public libraries and lyceum- 
lectures, it was portentous and alarming. 

The rebellion began under the ferule of Mas* 
ter Weeks, a slender youth firom a country col- 
lege, under-fed, thin-blooded, sloping-shouldered, 
knock-kneed, straight-haired, weak-bearded, pale- 
eyed, wide-pupilled, half-colored ; a common type 
enough in in-door races, not rich enough to pick 
and choose in their alliances. Nature kills off a 
good many of this sort in the first teething- time, 
a few in later childhood, a good many again in 


10 


ELSIE VENDER. 


early adolescence ; but every now and then one 
runs the gauntlet of her various diseases, or rathei 
forms of one disease, and grows up, as Master 
Weeks had done. 

It was a very foolish thing for him to try to in- 
flict personal punishment on such a lusty young 
fellow as Abner Briggs, Junior, one of the “ hard- 
est customers ” in the way of a rough-and-tumble 
fight that there were anywhere round. No doubt 
he had been insolent, but it would have been bet- 
ter to overlook it. It pains me to report the events 
which took place when the master made his rash 
attempt to maintain his authority. Abner Briggs, 
Junior, was a great, hulking fellow, who had been 
bred to butchering, but urged by his parents to 
attend school, in order to learn the elegant accom- 
plishments of reading and writing, in which he 
was sadly deficient. He was in the habit of talk- 
ing and laughing pretty loud in school-hours, of 
throwing wads of paper reduced to a pulp by a 
natural and easy process, of occasional insolence 
and general negligence. One of the soft, but un- 
pleasant missiles just alluded to, flew by the mas- 
ter’s head one morning, and flattened itself against 
the wall, where it adhered in the form of a convex 
mass in alto rilievo. The master looked round 
and saw the young butcher’s arm in an attitude 
which pointed to it unequivocally as the source 
&om which the projectile had taken its flight. 

Master Weeks turned pale. He must “lick’ 
Abner Briggs, Junior, or abdicate. So he deter 
mined to lick Abner Briggs, Junior. 


ELSIE VENNER. 


41 


“ Come here, Sir ! ’’ he said ; ‘‘ you have in« 
lulted me and outraged the decency of the school- 
room often enough ! Hold out your hand I ” 

The young fellow grinned and held it out 
The master struck at it with his black ruler, with 
will in the blow and a snapping of the eyes, as 
much as to say that he meant to make him smart 
this time. The young fellow pulled his hand 
back as the ruler came down, and the master hit 
himself a vicious blow with it on the right knee. 
There are things no man can stand. The master 
caught the refractory youth by the collar and 
began shaking him^ or rather shaking himself 
against him. 

“ Le’ go o’ that are coat, naow,” said the fellow, 
or I ’ll make ye ! ’T ’ll take tew on ye t’ handle 
me, I tell ye, ’n’ then ye caant dew it ! ” — and th 
young pupil returned the master’s attention b^ 
catching hold of his collar. 

When it comes to that, the best man^ not ex- 
actly in the moral sense, but rather in the mate- 
rial, and more especially the muscular point of 
view, is very apt to have the best of it, irrespeC" 
lively of the merits of the case. So it happened 
now. The unfortunate schoolmaster found hiin- 
Belf taking the measure of the sanded floor, amidst 
the general uproar of the school. From that mo« 
jnent his ferule was broken, and the school-corn- 
tnittee very soon had a vacancy to fill. 

Master Pigeon, the successor of Master Weeks, 
Was of better stature, but loosely put together 


ELSIE VENKER. 


t2 

and slender-limbed. A dreadfully nervous kind 
of man he was, walked on tiptoe, started at sud 
den noises, was distressed when he heard a whis- 
per, had a quick, suspicious look, and was always 
saying, “ Hush ! ” and putting his hands to his 
ears. The boys were not long in finding ou 
this nervous weakness, of course. In less than 
a week a regular system of torments was in- 
augurated, full of the most diabolical malice and 
ingenuity. The exercises of the conspirators 
varied from day to day, but consisted mainly of 
foot-scraping, solos on the slate-pencil, (making it 
screech on the slate,) falling of heavy books, at- 
tacks of coughing, banging of desk-lids, boot- 
creaking, with sounds as of drawing a cork from 
time to time, followed by suppressed chuckles. 

Master Pigeon grew worse andjftvorse under 
these inflictions. The rascally boys always had 
an excuse for any one trick they were caught at. 
“ Couldn’ help coughin’. Sir.” “ Slipped out o’ 
m’ han’. Sir.” “ Didn’ go to. Sir.” “ Didn’ dew ’t 
o’ purpose, Sir.” And so on, — always the best 
of reasons for the most outrageous of behavior. 
The master weighed himself at the grocer’s on a 
platform balance, some ten days after he began 
keeping the school. At the end of a week he 
weighed himself again. He had lost two pounds. 
At the end of another week he had lost five. He 
made a little calculation, based on these data, 
5:om which he learned that in a certain numbei 
Df months, going on at this rate, he should comi 


ELSIE VENNEK. 


43 


to weigh precisely nothing at all; and as this 
was a sum in subtraction he did not care t<? 
work out in practice, Master Pigeon took to him- 
self wings and left the school-committee in pos- 
session of a letter of resignation and a vacant 
place to fill once more. 

This was the school to which Mr. Bernard 
Langdon found himself appointed as master. 
He accepted the place conditionally, with the 
understanding that he should leave it at the end 
of a month, if he were tired of it. 

The advent of Master Langdon to Pigwacket 
Centre created a much more lively sensation than 
had attended that of either of his predecessors. 
Looks go a good way all the world over, and 
though there were several good-looking people 
in the place, and Major Bush was what the na- 
tives of the town called a “ hahnsome mahn,*’ 
that is, big, fat, and red, yet the sight of a really 
elegant young fellow, with the natural air which 
grows up with carefully-bred young persons, was 
a novelty. The Brahmin blood which came from 
his grandfather as well as from his mother, a di- 
rect descendant of the old Flynt family, well 
known by the famous tutor, Henry Flynt, (see 
Cat. Harv. Anno 1693,) had been enlivened and 
enriched by that of the Wentworths, which had 
had a good deal of ripe old Madeira and other 
generous elements mingled with it, so that it ran 
to gout sometimes in the old folks and to high 
spirit, warm complexion, and curly hair in some 


14 


ELSIE VENNTIR. 


of the younger ones. The soft curling hair Mr 
Bernard had inherited, — something, perhaps, of 
the high spirit ; but that we shall have a chance 
of finding out by-and-by. But the long sermons 
and the frugal board of his Brahmin ancestry, 
with his own habits of study, had told upon his 
color, which was subdued to something more of 
delicacy than one would care to see in a young 
fellow with rough work before him. This, how- 
ever, made him look more interesting, or, as the 
young ladies at Major Bush’s said, “ interestin’.” 

When Mr. Bernard showed himself at meet- 
ing, on the first Sunday after his arrival, it may 
be supposed that a good many eyes were turned 
upon the young schoolmaster. There was some- 
thing heroic in his coming forward so readily to 
take a place which called for a strong hand, and 
a prompt, steady will to guide it. In fact, his 
position was that of a military chieftain on the 
eve of a battle. Everybody knew everything in 
Pigwacket Centre; and it was an understood 
thing that the young rebels meant to put down 
the new master, if they could. It was natural 
that the two prettiest girls in the village, called 
in the local dialect, as nearly as our limited al- 
phabet will represent it, Alminy Cutterr, and Ar- 
villy Braowne, should feel and express an interest 
in the good-looking stranger, and that, when their 
flattering comments were repeated in the hear- 
ing of their indigenous admirers, among whom 
^ ere some of the older “ boys ” of the school, ii 


ELSIE VENNER. 


45 


should not add to the amiable dispositions of the 
turbulent j'outh. 

Monday came, and the new schoolmaster was 
in his chair at the upper end of the schoolhouse, 
on the raised platform. The rustics looked at 
his handsome face, thoughtful, peaceful, pleas- 
ant, cheerful, but sharply cut round the lips and 
proudly lighted about the eyes. The ringleader 
of the mischief-makers, the young butcher who 
has before figured in this narrative, looked at him 
stealthily, whenever he got a chance to study 
him unobserved ; for the truth was, he felt uncom- 
fortable, whenever he found the large, dark eyes 
fixed on his own little, sharp, deep-set, gray ones. 
But he managed to study him pretty well, — first 
his face, then his neck and shoulders, the set of 
his arms, the narrowing at the loins, the make ol 
his legs, and the way he moved. In short, he ex- 
amined him as he would have examined a steer, 
to see what he could do and how he would cut 
up. If he could only have gone to him and felt 
of his muscles, he would have been entirely satis- 
fied. He was not a very wise youth, but he did 
Know well enough, that, though big arms and 
legs are very good things, there is something be- 
sides size that goes to make a man ; and he had 
heard stories of a fighting-man, called “ The 
Spider,^’ from his attenuated nroportions, who 
was yet a terrible hiHer in the ring, and had 
whipped many a big-limbed fellow, in and out 
the rof ed aren 


16 


ELSIE VENNER. 


Nothing CO aid be smoother than the way in 
which everything went on for the first day ox 
two. The new master was so kind and cour- 
teous, he seemed to take everything in such a 
natural, easy way, that there was no chance to 
pick a quarrel with him. He in the mean time 
thought it best to watch the boys and young men 
for a day or two with as little show of authority 
as possible. It was easy enough to see that he 
would have occasion for it before long. 

The schoolhouse was a grim, old, red, one- 
story building, perched on a bare rock at the top 
,of a hill, — partly because this was a conspic- 
uous site for the temple of learning, and partly 
because land is cheap where there is no chance 
even for rye or buckwheat, and the very sheep 
find nothing to nibble. About the little porch 
were carved initials and dates, at various heights, 
from the stature of nine to that of eighteen. In- 
side were old unpainted desks, — unpainted, but 
browned with the umber of human contact, — 
and hacked by innumerable jack-knives. It was 
*ong since the walls had been whitewashed, as 
might be conjectured by the various traces left 
upon them, wherever idle hands or sleepy heads 
could reach them. A curious appearance was 
noticeable on various higher parts of the wall, 
namely, a wart-like eruption, as one would be 
tempted to caU it, being in reality a crop of the 
Boft missiles before mentioned, which, adhering in 
considerable numbers, and hardening after the 


ELSIE VENNER. 


47 


nsaal fashion of papier macli6^ formed at last per- 
manent ornaments of the edifice. 

The young master’s quick eye soon noticed 
that a particular part of the wall was most fa- 
vored with these ornamental appendages. Their 
position pointed sufficiently clearly to the part of 
the room they came from. In fact, there was a 
nest of young mutineers just there, which must 
be broken up by a coup d'etat This was easily 
effected by redistributing the seats and arranging 
the scholars according to classes, so that a mis- 
chievous fellow, charged full of the rebellious 
imponderable, should find himself between two 
non-conductors, in the shape of small boys of 
studious habits. It was managed quietly enough, 
in such a plausible sort of w^ay that its motive 
was not thought of. But its effects were soon 
felt; and then began a system of correspondence 
by signs, and the throwing of little scrawls done 
up in pellets, and announced by preliminary 
ii'h'ms I to call the attention of the distant youth 
addressed. Some of these were incendiary doc- 
uments, devoting the schoolmaster to the lower 

divinities, as “ a stuck-up dandy,” as “ a 

purse-proud aristocrat,” as “ a sight too big 

for his, etc.,” and holding him up in a variety of 
equally forcible phrases to the indignation of the 
vouthful community of School District No. 1, 
pigwacket Centre. 

Presently the draughtsman of the school set 
% caricature in circulation, labelled, to prevent 


48 


ELSIE VENNER. 


mistakes, with the schoolmaster’s name. An 
immense bell-crowned hat, and a long, pointed 
swallow-tailed coat showed that the artist had 
in his mind the conventional dandy, as shown in 
prints of thirty or forty years ago, rather than 
any actual human aspect of the time. But it 
was passed round among the boys and made its 
laugh, helping of course to undermine the mas- 
ter’s authority, as “ Punch ” or the “ Charivari ” 
takts the dignity out of an obnoxious minister. 
One morning, on going to the schoolroom. Mas- 
ter Langdon found an enlarged copy of this 
sketch, with its label, pinned on the door. He 
took it down, smiled a little, put it into his 
pocket, and entered the schoolroom. An insid- 
ious silence prevailed, which looked as if some 
plot were brewing. The boys were ripe for mis- 
chief, but afraid. They had really no fault to 
find with the master, except that he was dressed 
like a gentleman, which a certain class of fellows 
always consider a personal insult to themselves. 
But the older ones were evidently plotting, and 
more than once the warning cChUml was heard, 
and a dirty little scrap of paper rolled into a wad 
shot from one seat to another. One of these 
liappened to strike the stove-funnel, and lodged 
on the master’s desk. He was cool enough not 
to seem to notice it. He secured it, however 
and found an opportunity to look at it, without 
being observed by the boys. It required no 
^,diate notice. 


ELSIE VENNER. 


49 


Hg who should have enjoyed the privilege of 
coking upon Mr. Bernard Langdon the next 
morning, when his toilet was about half finished, 
would have had a very pleasant gratuitous exhi- 
bition. First he buckled the strap of his trousers 
pretty tightly. Then he took up a pair of heavy 
dumb-bells, and swung them for a few minutes ; 
then two great “ Indian clubs,” with which he en- 
acted all sorts of impossible-looking feats. His 
limbs were not very large, nor his shoulders re- 
markably broad ; but if you knew as much of 
the muscles as all persons who look at statues 
and pictures with a critical eye ought to have 
learned, — if you knew the trapezius^ 
mond-shaped over the back and shoulders like 
a monk’s cowl, — or the deltoid^ which caps the 
shoulder like an epaulette, — or the triceps^ which 
furnishes the calf oi the upper arm, — or the hard- 
knotted biceps ^ — any of the great sculptural land- 
marks, in fact, — you would have said there was 
a pretty show of them, beneath the white satiny 
skin of Mr. Bernard Langdon. And if you had 
been him, when he had laid down the Indian 
clubs, catch hold of a leather strap that hung 
from the beam of the old-fashioned ceiling, and 
lift and lower himself over and over again by his 
left hand alone, you might have thought it a very 
simple and easy thing to do, until you tried to do 
it yourself. — Mr. Bernard looked at himself with 
ihe eye of an expert. “ Pretty well ! ” he said ; 
“ not so much fallen ofl’as I expected.” Then 

4 


VOU I. 


50 


ELSIE VENNER. 


he set up his bolster in a very knowing sort ol 
way, and delivered two or three blows straight 
as rulers and swift as winks. “ That will do,” 
he said. Then, as if determined to make a cer- 
tainty of his condition, he took a dynamometer 
from one of the drawers in his old veneered 
bureau. First he squeezed it with his two hands. 
Then he placed it on the floor and lifted, steadily, 
strongly. The springs creaked and cracked ; the 
index swept with a great stride far up into the 
high figures of the scale; it was a good lift. 
He was satisfied. He sat down on the edge of 
his bed and looked at his cleanly-shaped arms. 

If I strike one of those boobies, I am afraid I 
shall spoil him,” he said. Yet this young man, 
when weighed with his class at the college, 
could barely turn one hundred and forty-two 
pounds in the scale, — not a heavy weight, 
surely ; but some of the middle weights, as the 
present English champion, for instance, seem to 
be of a far finer quality of muscle than the bulk- 
ier fellows. 

The master took his breakfast with a good 
appetite that morning, but was perhaps rather 
more quiet than usual. After breakfast he went 
np -stairs and put on a light loose frock, instead 
t*f that which he commonly wore, which was a 
close-fitting and rather stylish one. On his way to 
school he -met Alminy Cutterr, who happened to 
be walking in the other direction. “ Good morn- 
ing, Miss Cutter,” he said ; for she and another 


ELSIE VENXER. 


51 


young lady had been introduced to him, on a 
former occasion, in the usual phrase of polite so- 
ciety in presenting ladies to gentlemen, — “ Mr. 
Langdon, let me make y’ acquainted with Miss 
Cutterr; — let me make y’ acquainted with Miss 
Braowne.” So he said, “ Good morning ” ; to 
which she replied, “ Good morn in’, Mr. Lang-' 
don. Haow’s yom haiilth ? ” The answer to 
this question ought naturally to have been the 
end of the talk ; but Alminy Cutterr lingered 
and looked as if she had something more on 
her mind. 

A young fellow does not require a great ex- 
perience to read a simple country-girPs face as 
if it were a signboard. Alminy was a good soul, 
with red cheeks and bright eyes, kind-hearted as 
she could be, and it was out of the question for 
her to hide her thoughts or feelings like a fine 
lady. Her bright eyes were moist and her red 
cheeks paler than their wont, as she said, with 
her lips quivering, — “ Oh, Mr. Langdon, them 
boys ’ll be the death of ye, if ye don’t take 
caar ! ” 

“ Why, what’s the matter, my dear ? ” said Mr. 
Bernard. — Don’t think there was anything very 
sdd in that “ my dear,” at the second interview 
with a village belle; — some of these woman- 
lamcrs call a girl “ My dear,” after five minutes’ 
acquaintance, and it sounds all right as they say 
\l. But you had better not try it at a venture. 

It sounded all right to Alminy, as Mr. Bernard 


52 


ELSIE VENNER. 


said it. — “ I ’ll tell ye what’s the rnahtterr,” she 
6aid, in a frightened voice. “ Ahbne^’s go’n’ to 
car’ his dog, ’n’ he ’ll set him on ye ’z sure ’z y’ ’r* 
alive. ’T ’s the same cretur that haiif cat up 
Eben Squires’s little Jo, a year come nex’ Faiist 
day.” 

Now this last statement was undoubtedly over- 
colored ; as little Jo Squires was running about 
the village, — with an ugly scar on his arm, it ia 
true, where the beast had caught him with his 
teeth, on the occasion of the child’s taking liber- 
ties with him, as he had been accustomed to do 
with a good-tempered Newfoundland dog, who 
seemed to like being pulled and hauled round by 
children. After this the creature was commonly 
muzzled, and, as he was fed on raw meat chiefly, 
was always ready for a fight, — which he was 
occasionally indulged in, when anything stout 
enough to match him could be found in any of 
the neighboring villages. 

Tiger, or, more briefly, Tige, the property of 
Abner Briggs, Junior, belonged to a species not 
distinctly named in scientific books, but well 
known to our country-folks under the nam 
“ Yallali dog.” They do not use this expres 
sion as they would say black dog or white dog, 
but with almost as definite a meaning as when 
they speak of a terrier or a spaniel. A “ yallah 
dog,” is a large canine brute, of a dingy old- 
flannel color, of no particular breed except his 
own, who hangs round a tavern or a butcher’s 


ELSIE VENNER. 


5d 


shop, or trots alongside of a team, looking as if 
he were disgusted with the world, and the world 
with him. Our inland population, while they 
tolerate him, speak of him with contempt. Old 

, of Meredith Bridge, used to twit the sun 

for not shining on cloudy days, swearing, that, 
if he hung up his “ yallah dog,” he would make 
a better show of daylight. A country fellow, 
abusing a horse of his neighbor’s, vowed, that, 
‘‘ if he had such a boss, he’d swap him for a 
‘ yallah dog,’ — and then shoot the dog.” 

Tige was an ill-conditioned brute by nature, 
and art had not improved him by cropping his 
ears and tail and investing him with a spiked 
collar. He bore on his person, also, various not 
ornamental scars, marks of old battles ; for Tige 
nad fight in him, as was said before, and as might 
be guessed by a certain bluntness about the muz- 
zle, with a projection of the lower jaw, which 
looked as if there might be a bull-dog stripe 
among the numerous bar-sinisters of his lineage. 

It was hardly fair, however, to leave Alminy 
Cutterr waiting while this piece of natural his- 
tory was telling. — As she spoke of little Jo, who 
had been “ haaf eat up ” by Tige, she could not 
contain her sympathies, and began to cry. 

“ Why, my dear little soul,” said Mr. Bernard^ 
' what are you worried about ? I used to play 
with a bear when I was a bov ; and the beai 
used to hug me, and 1 used to kiss nim, — - 
Bo!” 


54 


ELSIE VENDER. 


It was too bad of Mr Bernard, only the second 
time he had seen Alminy ; but her kind feelings 
had touched him, and that seemed the most nat- 
ural way of expressing his gratitude. Alminy 
looked round to see if anybody was near ; she 
saw nobody, so of course it would do no good 
to “ holler.” She saw nobody ; but a stout young 
fellow, leading a yellow dog, muzzled, saw her 
through a crack in a picket fence, not a great 
way off the road. Many a year he had been 
“ hangin’ ’raoun’ ” Alminy, and never did he see 
any encouraging look, or hear any “ Behave, 
naow ! ” or ‘‘ Come, naow, a’n’t ye ’shamed ? ” 
or other forbidding phrase of acquiescence, such 
as village belles understand as well as ever did 
the nymph who fled to the willows in the eclogue 
we all remember. 

No wonder he was furious, when he saw the 
schoolmaster, who had never seen the girl until 
within a week, touching with his lips those rosy 
cheeks which he had never dared to approach. 
But that was all ; it was a sudden impulse ; and 
the master turned away from the young girl, 
aughing, and telling her not to fret herself about 
Uim, — he would take care of himself. 

So Master Langdon walked on toward his 
echoolhouse, not displeased, perhaps, with his lit- 
tle adventure, nor immensely elated by it ; for he 
Was one of the natural class of the sex-subduers 
and had had many a smile without asking, which 
bad been denied to the feeble youth who try t4 


ELSIE VENNER. 


55 


svin favor by pleading their passion in rhyme, and 
even to the more formidable approaches of young 
officers in volunteer companies, considered by 
many to be quite irresistible to the fair who 
have once beheld them from their windows in the 
epaulettes and plumes and sashes of the “ Pig* 
wacket Invincibles,” or the “ Hackmatack Ran 
gers.’’ 

Master Langdon took his seat and began the 
exercises of his school. The smaller boys recited 
their lessons well enough, but some of the larger 
ones were negligent and surly. He noticed one 
or two of them looking toward the door, as if ex- 
pecting somebody or something in that direction. 
At half past nine o’clock, Abner Briggs, Junior, 
who had not yet shown himself, made his appear- 
ance. He was followed by his “ yallah dog,” 
without his muzzle, who squatted down very 
grimly near the door, and gave a wolfish look 
round the room, as if he were considering which 
was the plumpest boy to begin with. The young 
butcher, meanwhile, went to his seat, looking 
somewhat flushed, except round the lips, which 
were hardly as red as common, and set pretty 
sharply. 

“ Put out that dog, Abner Briggs ! ” — The 
master spoke as the captain speaks to the helms- 
man, when there are rocks foaming at the lips, 
right under his lee. 

Abner Briggs answered as the helmsman an 
Bwers, when he knows he has a mutinous crew 


56 


ELSIE VENNER. 


round him that mean to run the ship on the reef, 
and is one of the mutineers himself. “ Put him 
aout y’rself, ’f ye a’n’t afeard on him ! ” 

The master stepped into the aisle. The great 
cur showed his teeth, — and the devilish instincts 
of his old wolf-ancestry looked out of his eyes, 
and flashed from his sharp tusks, and yawned in 
his wide mouth and deep red gullet. 

The movements of animals are so much quicker 
than those of human beings commonly are, that 
they avoid blows as easily as one of us steps out 
of the way of an ox-cart. It must be a very stu- 
pid dog that lets himself be run over by a fast 
driver in his gig ; he can jump out of the wheel’s 
way after the tire has already touched him. So, 
while one is lifting a stick to strike or drawing 
back his foot to kick, the beast makes his spring, 
and the blow or the kick comes too late. 

It was not so this time. The master was a 
fencer, and something of a boxer ; he had played 
at single-stick, and was used to watciiing an ad- 
versary’s eye and coming down on him without 
any of those premonitory symptoms by which 
unpractised persons show long beforehand what 
mischief they meditate. 

“Out with you!” he said, fiercely, — and ex- 
plained what he meant by a sudden flash of his 
foot that clashed the yellow dog’s white teeth to- 
gether like the springing of a bear-trap. The cui 
knew he had found his master at the first word 
and glance, as low animals on four legs, or a 


ELSIE VEiraER. 


57 


Bmaller number, always do; and the blow took 
him so by surprise, that it curled him up in an 
instant, and he went bundling out of the open 
Bchoolhouse-door with a most pitiable yelp, and 
his stump of a tail shut down as close as his 
owner ever shut the short, stubbed blade of his 
jack-knife. 

It was time for the other cur to find who his 
master was. 

“ Follow your dog, Abner Briggs ! ” said Mas- 
ter Langdon. 

The stout butcher-youth looked round, but the 
rebels were all cowed and sat still. 

“I’ll go when I’m ready,” he said, — “’n’ I 
guess I won’t go afore I’m ready.” 

“You’re ready now,” said Master Langdon, 
turning up his cuffs so that the little boys noticed 
the yellow gleam of a pair of gold sleeve-buttons, 
once worn by Colonel Percy Wentworth, famous 
in the Old French War. 

Abner Briggs, Junior, did not apparently think 
he was ready, at any rate ; for he rose up in his 
place, and stood with clenched fists, defiant, as 
the master strode towards him. The master 
knew the fellow was really frightened, for all his 
looks, and that he must have no time to rally. 
So he caught him suddenly by the collar, and, 
with one great pull, had him out over his desk 
and on the open floor. He gave him a sharp 
fling backwards and stood looking at him. 

The rough-and-tumble fighter^^ all clinch^ aa 


58 


ELSIE VENNER. 


everybody knows ; and Abner Briggs, Junior, waa 
one of that kind. He remembered how he had 
floored Master Weeks, and he had just ‘‘ spunk 
enough left in him to try to repeat his former 
successful experiment on the new master. He 
sprang at him, open-handed, to clutch him. So 
the master had to strike, — once, but very hard, 
and just in the place to tell. No doubt, the au- 
thority that doth hedge a schoolmaster added to 
the effect of the blow ; but the blow was itself a 
neat one, and did not require to be repeated. 

“ Now go home,” said the master, “ and don’t 
let me see you or your dog here again.” And he 
turned his cuffs down over the gold sleeve-but- 
tons. 

This finished the great Pigwacket Centre School 
rebellion. What could be done with a master 
who was so pleasant as long as the boys behaved 
decently, and such a terrible fellow when he got 
“ riled,” as they called it ? In a week’s time 
everything was reduced to order, and the school- 
committee were delighted. The master, however, 
had received a proposition so much more agreea- 
ble and advantageous, that he informed the com- 
nittee he should leave at the end of his month 
having in his eye a sensible and energetic young 
college-graduate who would be willing and fully 
competent to take his place. 

So, afc the expiration of the appointed time, 
Bernard Langdon, late master of the School Dis* 
trict No. 1, Pigwacket Centre, took his departure 


ELSIE VENNER. 


5 ? 


Horn that place for another locality, whither we 
shall follow him, carrying with him the regrets 
of the committee, of most of the scholars, and 
of several young ladies ; also two locks of hair, 
sent unbeknown to payrents, one dark and one 
^’■armish auburn, inscribed with the respective in 
Itials of Alminy Cutterr and Arvilly Braowne. 


60 


EL3!E VEl^Wiyi. 


CHAPTER IV 

TE^ MOTH FLIES INTO THE CANDLE. 

The invitation which Mr. Bernard Langdon 
had accepted came from the Board of Trustees 
of the “ ApoUinean Female Institute,” a school 
for the education of young ladies, situated in the 
flourishing town of Rockland. This was an es* 
tablishment on a considerable scale, in which a 
hundred scholars or thereabouts were taught the 
ordinary English branches, several of the modern 
languages, something of Latin, if desired, with a 
little natural philosophy, metaphysics, and rheto- 
ric, to finish off with in the last year, and music 
at any time when they would pay for it. At the 
close of their career in the Institute, they were 
submitted to a grand public examination, and re- 
ceived diplomas tied in blue ribbons, which pro- 
claimed them with a great flourish of capitals to 
be graduates of the ApoUinean Female Institute. 

Rockland was a town of no inconsiderable pre 
tensions. It was ennobled by lying at the foot 
of a mountain, — called by the working-folks of 
the place ^^the Maounting,” — which sufficiently 
•showed that it was the principal high laud of the 


ELSIE VENNER. 


61 


district in which it was situated. It lay to the 
south of this, and basked in the sunshine as Italy 
stretches herself before the Alps. To pass from 
the town of Tamarack on the north of the nmun- 
tain to Rockland on the south was like crossing 
from Coire to Chiavenna. 

There is nothing gives glory and grandeur and 
romance and mystery to a place like the impend- 
ing presence of a high mountain. Our beautiful 
Northampton with its fair meadows and noble 
stream is lovely enough, but owes its surpassing 
attraction to those twin summits which brood 
over it like living presences, looking down into its 
streets as if they were its tutelary divinities, dress- 
ing and undressing their green shrines, robing 
themselves in jubilant sunshine or in sorrowing 
clouds, and doing penance in the snowy shroud 
of winter, as if they had living hearts under their 
rocky ribs and changed their mood like the chil- 
dren of the soil at their feet, who grow up under 
their almost parental smiles and frowns. Happy 
is the child whose first dreams of heaven are 
blended with the evening glories of Mount Hol- 
yoke, when the sun is firing its treetops, and gild- 
ing the white walls that mark its one human 
dwelling ! If the other and the wilder of the 
two summits has a scowl of terror in its over- 
hanging brows, yet is it a pleasing fear to look 
upon its savage solitudes frirough the barred 
nursery-windows in the heart of the sweet, com- 
panionable village. — And how the mountain? 


62 


ELSIE VENNER. 


love their children ! The sea is of a facile virtue, 
and will run to kiss the first comer in any port he 
visits ; but the chaste mountains sit apart, and 
show their faces only in the midst of their own 
families. 

The Mountain which kept watch to the north of 
Rockland lay waste and almost inviolate through 
much of its domain. The catamount still glared 
from the branches of its old hemlocks on the 
lesser beasts that strayed beneath him. It was 
not long since a wolf had wandered down, fam- 
ished in the winter’s dearth, and left a few bones 
and some tufts of wool of what had been a lamb 
in the morning. Nay, there were broad-footed 
tracks in the snow only two years previously, 
which could not be mistaken ; — the black bear 
alone could have set that plantigrade seal, and 
little children must come home early from school 
and play, for he is an indiscriminate feeder when 
he is hungry, and a little child would not come 
amiss \yhen other game was wanting. 

But these occasional visitors may have been 
mere wanderers, which, straying along in the 
woods by day, and perhaps stalking through the 
treets of still villages by night, had worked their 
way along down from the ragged rnountain-spurs 
of higher latitudes. The one feature of The 
Mountain that shed the brownest horror on its 
woods was the existence of the terrible region 
knDwn as Rattlesnake Ledge, and still tenanteq 
by those damnable reptiles, which distil a fierce/ 


ELSIE VENNER. 


63 


irenom under our cold northern sky than the 
cobra himself in the land of tropical soices and 
poisons. 

From the earliest settlement of the place, this 
fact had been, next to the Indians, the reign- 
ing nightmare of the inhabitants. It was easy 
enough, after a time, to drive away the savages ; 
for “ a screeching Indian Divell,” as our fathers 
called him, could not crawl into the crack of a 
rock to escape from his pursuers. But the ven- 
omous population of Rattlesnake Ledge had a 
Gibraltar for their fortress that might have defied 
the siege-train dragged to the walls of Sebasto- 
pol. In its deep embrasures and its impregnable 
casemates they reared their families, they met in 
love or wrath, they twined together in family 
knots, they hissed defiance in hostile clans, they 
fed, slept, hybernated, and in due time died in 
peace. Many a foray had the town’s-people made, 
and many a stuffed skin was shown as a trophy, 
— nay, there were families where the childrcn’a 
first toy was made from the warning append- 
age that once vibrated to the wrath of one of 
these “ cruel serpents.’’ Sometimes one of them, 
coaxed out by a warm sun, would writhe himself 
down the hillside into the roads, up the walks 
that led to houses, — worse than this, into the 
long grass, where the bare-footed mowers would 
Boon pass with their swinging scythes, — more 
-arely into houses, — and on one memorable oc< 
casion, early in the last century, into the meeting 


64 


ELSIE VEXNER. 


house, where he took a position on the pulpit- 
stairs, — as is narrated in the “ Account cf Some 
Remarkable Providences,” etc., where it is sug- 
gested that a strong tendency of the Rev. Didy- 
mus Bean, the Minister at that time, towards the 
Arminian Heresy may have had something to do 
with it, and that the Serpent supposed to have 
been killed on the Pulpit- Stairs was a false show 
of the Daemon’s Contrivance, he having come 
in to listen to a Discourse which was a sweet 
Savour in his Nostrils, and, of course, not being 
capable of being killed Himself. Others said, 
however, that, though there was good Reason 
to think it w’^s a Daemon, yet he did come with 
Intent to bite the Heel of that faithful Servant, 
— etc. 

One Gilson is said to have died of the bite of 
a rattlesnake in this town early in the present 
century. After this there was a great snake-hunt, 
in which very many of these venomous beasts 
were killed, — one in particular, said to have been 
as big round as a stout man’s arm, and to have 
had no less than forty joints to his rattle, — in- 
dicating, according to some, that he had lived 
forty years, but, if we might put any faith in 
the Indian tradition, that he had killed forty 
human beings, — an idle fancy, clearly. This 
hunt, however, had no permanent effect in keep- 
ing down the serpent population. Viviparous 
creatures are a kind of specie-paying lot, buf 
s>viparous ones only give their notes, as it were 


ELSiE VENNEn. 


65 


for a future brood, — an egg beings so to speakj 
a promise to pay a young one by-and-by, if 
nothing happen. Now the domestic habits 
of the rattlesnake are not studied very closely, 
for obvious reasons ; but it is, no doubt, to 
all intents and purposes oviparous. Conse- 
quently it has large families, and is not easy 
to kill out. 

In the year 184 — , a melancholy proof was 
afforded to the inhabitants of Rockland, that the 
brood which infested The Mountain was not 
extirpated. A very interesting young married 
woman, detained at home at the time by the 
state of her health, was bitten iiT the entry of 
her < wn house by a rattlesnake which had found 
its way down from The Mountain. Owing to 
the almost instant employment of powerful rem- 
edies, the bite did not prove immediately fatal ; 
but she died within a few months of the time 
when she was bitten. 

All this seemed to throw a lurid kind of 
shadow over The Mountain. Yet, as many 
years passed without any accident, people grew 
comparatively careless, and it might rather be 
said to add a fearful kind of interest to the ro- 
mantic hillside, that the banded reptiles, which 
had been the terror of the red men for nobody 
knows how .many thousand years, were there still, 
with the same poison-bags and spring-teeth at 
the white men’s service, if they meddled with 
them. 


▼OL. I. 


5 


86 


ELSIE VENNER. 


The other natural features of Rockland were 
Buch as many of our pleasant country-towns can 
boast of. A brook came tumbling down the 
mountain-side and skirted the most thickly set- 
tled portion of the village. In the parts of its 
course where it ran through the woods, the water 
looked almost as brown as coffee flowing from 
its urn, — to say like smoky quartz would per- 
haps give a better idea, — but in the open plain 
it sparkled over the pebbles white as a queen’s 
diamonds. There were huckleberry-pastures on 
the lower flanks of The Mountain, with plenty 
of the sweet-scented bayberry mingled with the 
other bushes. • In other fields grew great store of 
high-bush blackberries. Along the road-side were 
barberry-bushes, hung all over with bright red 
coral pendants in autumn and far into the winter. 
Then there were swamps set thick with dingy 
alders, where the three-leaved arum and the 
skunk’s-cabbage grew broad and succulent, — 
shelving down into black boggy pools here and 
there, at the edge of which the green frog, stupid- 
est of his tribe, sat waiting to be victimized by 
boy or snapping-turtle long after the shy and 
agile leopard-frog had taken the six-foot spring 
that plumped him into the middle of the pool. 
And on the neighboring banks the maiden-haii 
spread its flat disk of embroidered fronds on the 
wii-e-like stem that glistened polished and brown 
a.s the darkest tortoise-shell, and pale violets 
cheated by the cx)ld skies of their hues and pel 


ELSIE VENNER, 


67 


fume^ saiined themselves like white-cheeked in* 
valids. Over these rose the old forest-trees, — 
the maple, scarred with the wounds which had 
drained away its sweet life-blood, — the beech, its 
smooth gray bark mottled so as to look like the 
body of one of those great snakes of old that 
used to frighten armies, — always the mark of 
lovers’ knives, as in the days of Musidora and hey 
swain, — the yellow birch, rough as the breast of 
Silenus in old marbles, — the wild cherry, its little 
bitter fruit lying unheeded at its foot, — and, soar- 
ing over all, the huge, coarse-barked, splintery- 
limbed, dark-mantled hemlock, in the depth of 
whose aerial solitudes the crow brooded on her 
nest unscared, and the gray squirrel lived un- 
harmed till his incisors grew to look like ram’s- 
horns. 

Rockland would have been but half a town 
without its pond ; Quinnepeg Pond was the 
name of it, but the young ladies of the Apol- 
linean Institute were very anxious that it should 
be called Crystalline Lake. It was here that the 
young folks used to sail in summer and skate in 
winter; here, too, those queer, old, rum-scented 
good-for-nothing, lazy, story-telling, half-vaga 
bonds, who sawed a little wood or dug a few 
potatoes now and then under the pretence of 
working for their living used to go and fish 
through the ice for pickerel every winter. And 
^ere those three young people were drowned, a 
few summers ago, by the upsetting of a sail-boa 


68 


ELSIE VENNER. 


in a sudden flaw of wind. There is not one ol 
these smiling ponds which has not devoured more 
youths and maidens than any of those monsters 
the ancients used to tell such lies about. But 
it was a pretty pond, and never looked more in- 
nocent — so the native “ bard ” of Rockland said 
in his elegy — than on the morning when they 
found Sarah Jane and Ellen Maria floating 
among the lily-pads. 

The Apollinean Institute, or Institoot, as it 
was more commonly called, was, in the language 
of its Prospectus, a “ first-class Educational Es- 
tablishment.” It employed a considerable corps 
of instructors to rough out and finish the hundred 
young lady scholars it sheltered beneath its roof. 
First, ]VIi\ and Mrs. Peckham, the Principal and 
the Matron of the school. Silas Peckham was 
a thorough Yankee, born on a windy part of the 
coast, and reared chiefly on salt-fish. Everybody 
knows the type of Yankee produced by this cli- 
mate and diet : thin, as if he had been split and 
dried ; with an ashen kind of complexion, like 
the tint of the food he is made of; and about as 
sharp, tough, juiceless, and biting to deal with as 
the other is to the taste. Silas Peckham kept a 
young ladies’ school exactly as he would have 
k('.pt a hundred head of cattle, — for the sim- 
ple, unadorned purpose of making just as much 
money in just as few years as could be safeh 
done. Mr. Peckham gave very little personal at- 
tention to the department of instruction, but was 


ELSIE VENNER. 


69 


filway^i busy with contracts for flour and pota 
toes, beef and pork, and other nutritive staples, 
the amount of which required for such an estab- 
lishment was enough to frighten a quartermaster. 
Mrs. Peckham was from the West, raised on In- 
dian corn and pork, which give a fuller outlin® 
and a more humid temperament, but may per- 
haps be thought to render people a little coarse- 
fibred. Her specialty was to look after the 
feathering, cackling, roosting, rising, and general 
behavior of these hundred chicks. An honest, 
ignorant woman, she could not have passed an 
examination in the youngest class. So this dis- 
tinguished institution was under the charge of a 
commissary and a housekeeper, and its real busi- 
ness was making money by taking young girls in 
as boarders. 

Connected with this, however, was the inci- 
dental fact, which the public took for the prin- 
cipal one, namely, the business of instruction, 
hlr. Peckham knew well enough that it was just 
as well to have good instructors as bad ones, so 
far as cost was concerned, and a great deal better 
for the reputation of his feeding-establishment 
He tried to get the best he could without pay 
mg too much, and, having got them, to screw all 
the work out of them that could possibly be ex- 
tracted. 

There was a master for the English branches, 
with a young lady assistant. There was another 
foung lady who taugnt French, of the ahvahng 


ro 


ELSIE VENNER. 


and pahndahng^ style, which does Aot exactly 
smack of the asphalt of the Boulevards. There 
was also a German teacher of music, who some- 
times helped in French of the ahfaung and haun- 
iaung style, — so that, between the two, the young 
ladies could hardly have been mistaken for Paris- 
ians, by a Committee of the French Academy. 
The German teacher also taught a Latin class 
after his fashion, — benna^ a ben, galiboot^ a head, 
and so forth. 

The master for the English branches had lately 
left the school for private reasons, which need not 
be here mentioned, — but he had gone, at any 
rate, and it was his place which had been offered 
to Mr. Bernard Langdon. The offer came just 
in season, — as, for various causes, he was willing 
to leave the place where he had begun his new 
experience. 

It was on a fine morning, that Mr. Bernard, 
ushered in by Mr. Peckham, made his appearance 
in the great schoolroom of the Apollinean Insti- 
tute. A general rustle ran all round the seats 
when the handsome young man was introduced. 
The principal carried him to the desk of the 
young lady English assistant, Miss Barley by 
name, and introduced him to her. 

There was not a great deal of study done that 
day. The young lady assistant had to point out 
to the new master the whole routine in which the 
classes were engaged when their late teacher left 
Hid which had gone on as well as it could since 


ELSIE VENNER. 


71 


Then Master Langdon had a great many ques- 
tions to ask, some relating to his new duties, and 
Bome, perhaps, implying a degree of curiosity not 
very unnatural under the circumstances. The 
truth is, the general effect of the schoolroom, 
with its scores of young girls, aU their eyes 
naturally centring on him with fixed or furtive 
glances, was enough to bewilder and confuse a 
young man like Master Langdon, though he 
was not destitute of self-possession, as we have 
already seen. 

You cannot get together a hundred girls, tak- 
ing them as they come, from the comfortable and 
affluent classes, probably anywhere, certainly not 
in New England, without seeing a good deal of 
beauty. In fact, we very commonly mean by 
beauty the way young girls look when there is 
nothing to hinder their looking as Nature meant 
them to. And the great schoolroom of the Apol- 
linean Institute did really make so pretty a show 
on the morning when Master Langdon entered 
it, that he might be pardoned for asking Miss 
Darley more questions about his scholars than 
about their lessons. 

There were girls of all ages : little creatures, 
Bome pallid and delicate-looking, the offspring 
of invalid parents, — much given to books, not 
much to mischief, commonly spoken of as partic- 
ularly good children, and contrasted with another 
port, girls of more vigorous organization, who 
were disposed to laughing and play, and re- 


ELSIE VENDER. 


r2 

quired a strong hand to manage them ; — then 
young growing misses of every shade of Saxon 
complexion, and here and there one of more 
Southern hue: blondes, some of them so trans- 
lucent-looking, that it seemed as if you could se 
the souls in their bodies, like bubbles in glass, if 
souls were objects of sight; brunettes, some with 
rose-red colors, and some with that swarthy hue 
which often carries with it a heavily-shaded lip, 
and which with pure outlines and outspoken re- 
liefs, gives us some of our handsomest women, 
— the women whom ornaments of plain gold 
adorn more than any other parures ; and again, 
but only here and there, one with dark hair and 
gray or blue eyes, a Celtic type, perhaps, but 
found in our native stock occasionally ; rarest 
of all, a light-haired girl with dark eyes, hazel, 
brown, or ot the color of that mountain-brook 
spoken of in this chapter, where it ran through 
shadowy woodlands. With these were to be 
seen at intervals some of maturer years, full- 
blown flowers among the opening buds, with 
that conscious look upon their faces which so 
many women wear during the period when they 
never meet a single man without having his mon 
osyllable ready for him, — tied as they are, poor 
things ! on the rock of expectation, each of them 
an Andromeda waiting for her Perseus. 

“Who is that girl in ringlets, — the fourth in 
the third row on the right ? ” said Master Lang 
ion. 


ELSIE VENNER. 


Charlotte Ann Wood,” said Miss Darley ; — 
* writes very pretty poems.” 

“ Oh ! — And the pink one, three seats from 
her ? Looks bright ; anything in her ? ” 

“ Emma Dean, — day-scholar, — Squire Dean^ii 
daughter, — nice girl, — second medal last year.” 

The master asked these two questions in a 
careless kind of way, and did not seem to pay 
any too much attention to the answers. 

“ And who and what is that,” he said, — “ sit- 
ting a little apart there, — that strange, wild-look- 
ing girl ? ” 

This time he put the real question he wanted 
answered ; — the other two were asked at random, 
as masks for the third. 

The lady-teacher’s face changed ; — one would 
have said she was frightened or troubled. She 
looked at the girl doubtfully, as if she might hear 
the master’s question and its answer. But the 
girl did not look up ; — she was winding a gold 
chain about her wrist, and then uncoiling it, as if 
in a kind of reverie. 

Miss Darley drew close to the master and 
placed her hand so as to hide her lips. “ Don’t 
ook at her as if we were talking about her,” she 
whispered softly ; — ^ that is Elsie Venner.” 


7i 


ELSIE VENNEB. 


CHAPTER V. 

AN CLD-FASHIONED DESCRIPTIVE CnAPTER. 

It was a comfort to get to a place with some- 
thing like society, with residences which had pre. 
tensions to elegance, with people of. some breeding, 
with a newspaper, and “ stores ” to advertise in it, 
and with two or three churches to keep each 
other alive by wholesome agitation. Rockland 
was such a place. 

Some of the natural features of the town have 
been described already. The. Mountain, of course, 
was what gave it its character, and redeemed it 
from wearing the commonplace expression which 
belongs to ordinary country-villages. Beautiful, 
wild, invested with the mystery which belongs tc 
untrodden spaces, and with enough of terror to 
give it dignity, it had yet closer relations with 
the town over which it brooded than the passing 
stranger knew of. Thus, it made a local climate 
by cutting off the northern winds and holding the 
sun’s heat like a garden-wall. Peach-trees, which 
on the northern side of the mountain, hardly evei 
came to fruit, ripened abundant crons in Rock 
and. 


ELSIE VENI^ER. 


75 


But there was still another relation between 
the mountain and the town at its foot, which 
strangers were not likely to hear alluded to, and 
which was oftener thought of than spoken of by 
its inhabitants. Those high-impending forests, — 
“ hangers,” as White of Selborne would have 
called them, — sloping far upward and backward 
into the distance, had always an air of menace 
blended with their wild beauty. It seemed as if 
some heaven-scaling Titan had thrown his shag- 
gy robe over the bare, precipitous flanks of the 
rocky summit, and it might at any moment slide 
like a garment flung carelessly on the nearest 
chance-snpport, and, so sliding, crush the village 
out of being, as the Rossberg when it tumbled 
over on the valley of Goldau. 

Persons have been known to remove from th?k 
place, after a short residence in it, because they 
were haunted day and night by the thought of 
this awful green wall piled up into the air over 
their heads. They would lie awake of nights, 
thinking they heard the muffled snapping of 
roots, as if a thousand acres of the mountain- 
eide were tugging to break away, like the snow 
firom a house-roof, and a hundred thousand trees 
were clinging with all their fibres to hold back 
'he soil just ready to peel away and crash down 
with ah its rocks and forest-growths. And yet, 
by one of those strange contradictions we are 
constantly finding in human nature, there were 
natives of the town who would come back thirty 


76 


ELSIE TENNER. 


Dr forty years after leaving it, just to nestle andei 
this same threatening mountain-side, as old men 
Bun themselves against southward-facing walls. 
The old dreams and legends of danger added to 
the attraction. If the mountain should ever slide, 
they had a kind of feeling as if they ought to be 
there. It was a fascination like that which the 
rattlesnake is said to exert. 

This comparison naturally suggests the recoh 
lection of that other source of danger which was 
an element in the every-day life of the Rockland 
people. The folks in some of the neighboring 
towns had a joke against them, that a Rock- 
lander couldn’t hear a bean-pod rattle without 
saying, “ The Lord have mercy on us ! ” It is 
very true, that many a nervous old lady has had 
a terrible start, caused by some mischievous 
young rogue’s giving a sudden shake to one of 
these noisy vegetable products in her immediate 
vicinity. Yet, strangely enough, many persons 
missed the excitement of the possibility of a fatal 
bite in other regions, where there were nothing 
but black and green and striped snakes, mean 
ophidians, having the spite of the nobler serpent 
without his venom, — poor crawling creatures, 
whom Nature would not trust with a poison-bag. 
Many natives of Rockland did unquestionably 
experience a certain gratification in this infinitesi- 
mal sense of danger. It was noted that the old 
people retained their hearing longer than in othe/ 
placea Some said it was the softened climate 


ELSIE VENNER- 


7: 


Dut others believed it was owing to the habit of 
keeping their ears open whenever they were walk 
ing through the grass or in the woods. At any 
rate, a slight sense of danger is often an agreea- 
ble stimulus. People sip their creme de noyau 
with a peculiar tremulous pleasure, because there 
is a bare possibility that it may contain prussic 
acid enough to knock them over ; in which case 
they will lie as dead as if a thunder-cloud had 
emptied itself into the earth through their brain 
and marrow. 

But Rockland had other features which helped 
to give it a special character. First of all, there 
was one grand street which was its chief glory. 
Elm Street it was called, naturally enough, for its 
elms made a long, pointed-arched gallery of it 
through most of its extent. No natural Gothic 
arch compares, for a moment, with that formed 
by two American elms, where their lofty jets 
of foliage shoot across each other’s ascending 
curves, to intermingle their showery flakes of 
green. When one looks through a long double 
row of these, as in that lovely avenue which the 
poets of Yale remember so well, — 

‘‘ O, could the vista of my life but now as bright appear 
As when I first through Temple Street looked down tliine espalier ! ” 

he beholds a temple not built with hands, fairer 
than any minster, with all its clustered stems and 
flowering capitals, that ever grew in stone. 

Nobody know’s New England who is not on 
ifcrms of intimacy with one of its elms. The 


78 


ELSIE VENDER. 


dm comes nearer to having a soul than any othei 
vegetable creature among us. It loves man as 
man loves it. It is modest and patient. It has 
a small flake of a seed which blows in every- 
where and makes arrangements for coming up 
by-and-by. So, in spring, one finds a crop ol 
baby-elms among his carrots and parsnips, very 
weak and small compared to those succulent 
vegetables. The baby-elms die, most of them, 
slain, unrecognized or unheeded, by hand or hoe, 
as meekly as Herod’s innocents. One of them 
gets overlooked, perhaps, until it has established 
a kind of right to stay. Three generations of 
carrot and parsnip-consumers have passed away, 
yourself among them, and now let your great- 
grandson look for the baby-elm. Twenty-two 
feet of clean girth, three hundred and sixty feet 
in the line that bounds its leafy circle, it covers 
the boy with such a canopy as neither glossj^- 
leafed oak nor insect-haunted linden ever lifted 
into the summer skies. 

Elm Street was the pride of Rockland, but not 
only on account of its Gothic-arched vista. In 
this street were most of the great houses, or 
mansion-houses,” as it was usual to call them. 
Along this street, also, the more nicely kept and 
neatly painted dwellings were chiefly congre- 
gated. It was the correct thing for a Rcckland 
dignitary to have a house in Elm Street. 

A. New England “ mansion-house ” is naturally 
><iuare, with dormer windows projecting from th® 


ELSIE VENNEK. 


79 


roof, wiiich has a balustrade with turned posts 
round it. It shows a good breadth of front-yard 
before its door, as its owner shows a respectable 
expanse of clean shirt-front. It has a lateral 
margin beyond its stables and offices, as its mas- 
ter wears his white wrist-bands showing beyond 
his coat-cuifs. It may not have what can prop- 
erly be called grounds, but it must have elbow- 
room, at any rate. Without it, it is like a man 
who is always tight-buttoned for want of any 
linen to show. The mansion-house which has 
had to button itself up tight in fences, for want 
of green or gravel margin, will be advertising for 
boarders presently. The old English pattern of 
the New England mansion-house, only on a 
somewhat grander scale, is Sir Thomas Abney’s 
place, where dear, good Dr. Watts said prayers 
for the family, and wrote those blessed hymns of 
his that sing us into consciousness in our cradles, 
and come back to us in sweet, single verses, be- 
tween the moments of wandering and of stupor, 
when we lie dying, and sound over us when we 
can no longer hear them, bringing grateful tears 
to the hot, aching eyes beneath the thick, black 
veils, and carrying the holy calm with them 
which filled the good man’s heart, as he prayed 
and sung under the shelter of the old English 
mansion-house. 

Next to the mansion-houses, came the two-story 
trim, white-painted, “ genteel” houses, whi^h, be- 
ing more gossipy and less nicely bred, crowded 


BO 


ELSIE VENNER. 


close up to the street, instead of standing baci 
from it with arms akimbo, like the mansion 
houses. Their little front-yards were very com* 
monly full of lilac and syringa and other bushes, 
which were allowed to smother the lower storj 
almost to the exclusion of light and air, so that, 
what with small windows and small window- 
panes, and the darkness made by these choking 
growths of shrubbery, the front parlors of some 
of these houses were the most tomb-like, mel- 
ancholy places that could be found anywhere 
among the abodes of the living. Their garnish- 
ing was a*pt to assist this impression. Large- 
patterned carpets, which always look discontented 
in little rooms, hair-cloth furniture, black and 
shiny as beetles’ wing cases, and centre-tables, 
with a sullen oil-lamp of the kind called astral 
by our imaginative ancestors, in the centre, — 
these things were inevitable. In set piles round 
the lamp was ranged the current literature of the 
day, in the form of Temperance Documents, un- 
bound numbers of one of the Unknown Public’s 
Magazines with worn-out steel engravings and 
high-colored fashion-plates, the Poems of a dis- 
tinguished British author whom it is unnecessary 
to mention, a volume of sermons, or a novel or 
two, or both, according to the tastes of the family, 
and the Good Book, which is always Itself in the 
cheapest and commonest company. The father 
of the family with his hand in the breast of hia 
coat, the mother of the same in a wide-bordered 


ELSIE VENNER. 


8 . 


£5ap, sometimes a print of the Last Supper, by no 
means Morglien’s, or the Father of his Country, 
or the old General, or the Defender of the Constitu- 
tion, or an unknown clergyman with an open book 
before him, — these were the usual ornaments 
of the walls, the first two a matter of rigor, the 
others according to politics and other tendencies- 

This intermediate class of houses, wherever 
one finds them in New England towns, are very 
apt to be cheerless and unsatisfactory. The} 
have neither the luxury of the mansion-house nor 
the comfort of the farm-house. They are rarely 
kept at an agreeable temperature. The mansion- 
house has large fireplaces and generous chimneys, 
and is open to the sunshine. The farm-house 
makes no pretensions, but it has a good warm 
kitchen, at any rate, and one can be comfortable 
there with the rest of the family, without fear 
and without reproach. These lesser country- 
houses of genteel aspirations are much given to 
patent subterfuges of one kind and another to get 
heat without combustion. The chilly parlor and 
the slippery hair-cloth seat take the life out of the 
warmest welcome. K one would make these 
places wholesome, happy, and cheerful, the first 
precept would be, — The dearest fuel, plenty of 
it, and let half the heat go up the chimney. K 
you can’t afford this, don’t try to live in a gen- 
teel” fashion, but stick to tne ways of the hori- 
rst farm-house. 

There were a good many comfortable farm* 


TOU I. 


62 


ELSIE VENNER. 


houses scattered about Rockland. The best of 
them were something of the following pattern^ 
which is too often superseded of late by a more 
pretentious, but infinitely less pleasing kind of 
rustic architecture. A little back from the road, 
seated directly on the green sod, rose a plain 
wooden building, two stories in front, with a long 
roof sloping backwards to within a few feet ol 
the ground. This, like the “ mansion-house,” is 
copied from an old English pattern. Cottages 
of this model may be seen in Lancashire, for in- 
stance, always with the same honest, homely 
look, as if their roofs acknowledged their rela- 
tionship to the soil out of which they sprung. 
The walls were unpainted, but turned by the 
slow action of sun and air and rain to a quiet 
dove- or slate-color. An old broken mill-stone at 
the door, — a well-sweep pointing like a finger 
to the heavens, which the shining round of water 
beneath looked up at like a dark unsleeping eye, 
— a single large elm a little at one side, — a barn 
twice as big as the house, — a cattle-yard, with 

“ The white horns tossing above the wall,” — 

some fields, in pasture or in crops, with low stone 
walls round them, — a row of beehives, — a gar- 
den-patch, with roots, and currant-bushes, and 
naany-hued hollyhocks, and swollen-stemmed, 
globe-headed, seedling onions, and marigolds, 
and flower-de-luces, and lady’s-delights, and pe- 
nnies, crowding in together, with southernwooo 


FXSIE VENNER. 


83 


in the borders, and woodbine and hops and 
morning-glories climbing as they got a chance, 
— these were the features by which the Rock- 
land-born children remembered the farm-house, 
when they had grown to be men. Such are the 
recollections that come over poor sailor-boys 
crawling out on reeling yards to reef topsails as 
their vessels stagger round the stormy Cape ; and 
Buch are the flitting images that make the eyes 
of old country-born merchants look dim and 
dreamy, as they sit in their city palaces, warm 
with the after-dinner flush of the red wave out 
of which Memory arises, as Aphrodite arose from 
the green waves of the ocean. 

Two meeting-houses stood on two eminences, 
facing each other, and looking like a couple of 
fighting-cocks with their necks straight up in the 
air, — as if they would flap their roofs, the next 
thing, and crow out of their upstretched steeples, 
and peck at each other’s glass eyes with their 
sharp-pointed weathercocks. 

The first was a good pattern of the real old- 
fashioned New England meeting-house. It was 
a large barn with windows, fronted by a square 
tower crowned with a kind of wooden bell in- 
verted and raised on legs, out of which rose a 
slender spire with the sharp-billed weathercock at 
its summit. Inside, tall, square pews with flap- 
ping seats, and a gallery running round three 
sides of the building. On the fourth side the 
pulpit, with a huge, dusty sounding-board hang- 


84 


ELSIE VENNER. 


ing over it. Here preached the Reverend Piene^ 
pont Honeywood, D. D., successor, after a numbei 
of generations, to the office and the parsonage 
of the Reverend Didymus Bean, before men- 
tioned, but not suspected of any of his allege 
heresies. He held to the old faith of the Puri- 
tans, and occasionally delivered a discourse which 
was considered by the hard-headed theologians 
of his parish to have settled the whole matter 
fully and finally, so that now there was a good 
logical basis laid down for the Millennium, which 
might begin at once upon the platform of his 
demonstrations. Yet the Reverend Dr. Honey- 
wood was fonder of preaching plain, practical 
sermons about the duties of life, and showing his 
Christianity in abundant good works among his 
people. It was noticed by some few of his flock, 
not without comment, that the great majority of 
his texts came from the Gospels, and this more 
and more as he became interested in various be- 
nevolent enterprises which brought him into re- 
lations with ministers and kind-hearted laymen 
of other denominations. He was in fact a man 
of a very warm, open, and exceedingly human 
disposition, and, although bred by a clerical 
father, whose motto was anima mea cum 

Puritanis^^ he exercised his human faculties in 
the harness of his ancient faith with such free- 
dom that the straps of it got so loose they did 
not interfere greatly with the circulation of the 
Wami blood through his system. Once in a 


ELSIE VENNER. 


8 ^ 


while he seemed to think it necessary to come 
out with a grand doctrinal sermon, and then he 
would la})se away for a while into preaching on 
men’s duties to each other and to society, and hit 
hard, perhaps, at some of the actual vices of the 
time and place, and insist with such tenderness 
and eloquence on the great depth and breadth 
of true Christian love and charity, that his oldest 
deacon shook his head, and wished he had shown 
as much interest when he was preaching, three 
Sabbaths back, on Predestination, or in his dis- 
course against the Sabellians. But he was sound 
in the faith ; no doubt of that. Did he not pre- 
side at the council held in the town of Tama- 
rack, on the other side of the mountain, which 
expelled its clergyman for maintaining heretical 
doctrines ? As presiding officer, he did not vote, 
of course, but there was no doubt that he was all 
right ; he had some of the Edwards blood in him, 
and that couldn’t very well let him go wrong. 

The meeting-house on the other and opposite 
summit was of a more modern style, considered 
by many a great improvement on the old New 
England model, so that it is not uncommon for a 
country parish to pull down its old meeting-house 
wdiich has been preached in for a hundred years 
or so, and put up one of these more elegant edi- 
fices. The new building was in what may be 
called the florid shingle- Gothic manner. Its pin- 
Kiaclcs and crockets and other ornaments were, 
[ike the body of the building, all of pine wood 


86 


ELSIE VENNER. 


— an admirable material, as it is very soft and 
easily worked, and can be painted of any color 
desired. Inside, the walls were stuccoed in imita- 
tion of stone, — first a dark-brown square, then 
two light-brown squares, then another dark-brown 
square, and so on, to represent the accidental dif- 
ferences of shade always noticeable in the real 
stones of which walls are built. To be sure, the 
architect could not help getting his party-colored 
squares in almost as regular rhythmical order as 
those of a chess-board ; but nobody can avoid 
doing things in a systematic and serial way ; in- 
deed, people who wish to plant trees in natural 
clumps know very well that they cannot keep 
from making regular lines and symmetrical fig- 
ures, unless by some trick or other, as that one of 
throwing a peck of potatoes up into the air and 
sticking in a tree wherever a potato happens to 
fall. The pews of this meeting-house were the 
usual oblong ones, where people sit close together 
with a ledge before them to support their hymn- 
books, liable only to occasional contact with the 
back of the next pew’s heads or bonnets, and a 
place running under the seat of that pew where 
hats could be deposited, — always at the risk 
of the owner, in case of injury by boots or 
crickets. 

In this meeting-house preached the Reverend 
Chauncy Fairweather, a divine of the “Liberal” 
Bchool, as it is commonly called, bred at that fa 
ttious college which used to be thought, twenty 


ELSIE VENNER. 


87 


Di thirty years ago, to have the monopoly of train- 
ing young men in the milder forms of heresy. 
His ministrations were attended with decency, 
but not followed with enthusiasm. “ The beauty 
of virtue ” got to be an old story at last. “ The 
moral dignity of human nature ” ceased to excite 
a thrill of satisfaction, after some hundred repeti- 
tions. It grew to be a dull business, this preach- 
ing against stealing and intemperance, while he 
knew very well that the thieves were prowling 
round orchards and empty houses, instead of be- 
ing there to hear the sermon, and that the drunk- 
ards, being rarely church-goers, get little good by 
the statistics and eloquent appeals of the preacher. 
Every now and then, however, the Reverend Mr. 
Fairweather let off a polemic discourse against 
his neighbor opposite, which waked his people up 
a little; but it was a languid congregation, at 
best, — very apt to stay away from meeting in 
the afternoon, and not at all given to extra even- 
ing services. The minister, unlike his rival of 
the other side of the way, was a down-hearted 
and timid kind of man. He went on preaching 
as he had been taught to preach, but he had mis- 
givings at times. There was a little Roman 
Catholic church at the foot of the hijl where his 
own was placed, which he always had to pass on 
Sundays. He could never look on the thronging 
multitudes that crowded its pews and aisles or 
knelt bare-headed on its steps, without a longing 
to get in among them and go down on his knees 


88 


ELSIE VENNEfL 


and enjoy that luxury of devotional contact wliicn 
makes a worshipping throng as different from the 
same numbers praying apart as a bed of coals is 
from a trail of scattered cinders. 

“ Oh, if I could but huddle in wit], those poor 
laborers and working-women ! ” he would say to 
himself. “ If I could but breathe that atmosphere, 
stifling though it be, yet made holy by ancient 
litanies, and cloudy with the smoke of hallowed 
incense, for one hour, instead of droning over 
these moral precepts to my half-sleeping congre- 
gation ! ” The intellectual isolation of his sect 
preyed upon him ; for, of aU terrible things to 
natures like his, the most terrible is to belong to 
a minority. No person that looked at his thin 
and sallow cheek, his sunken and sad eye, his 
tremulous lip, his contracted forehead, or who 
heard his querulous, though not unmusical voice, 
could fail to see that his life was an uneasy one, 
that he was engaged in some inward conflict 
His dark, melancholic aspect contrasted with his 
seemingly cheerful creed, and was all the more 
striking, as the worthy Dr. Honeywood, profess- 
ing a belief which made him a passenger on 
board a shipwrecked planet, was yet a most good- 
humored aud companionable gentleman, whose 
laugh on week-days did one as much good to 
listen to as the best sermon he ever delivered on 
H Sunday. 

A mile or two from the centre of Rockland waa 
a pretty little Episcopal church, with a roof like a 


ELSIE TENNER. 


8S 


wedge of cheese, a square tower, a stained win- 
dow, and a trained rector, who read the service 
With such ventral depth of utterance and rrredu- 
plication of the rrresonant letter, that his own 
mother would not have known him for her son, 
if the good woman had not ironed his surplice 
and put it on with her own hands. 

There were two public-houses in the place : 
one dignified with the name of the Mountain 
House, somewhat frequented by city-people in 
the summer months, large-fronted, three-storied, 
balconied, boasting a distinct ladies’-drawing- 
room, and spreading a table d^hole of some pre- 
tensions ; the other, “ Pollard’s Tahvern,” in the 
common speech, — a two-story building, with a 
bar-room, once famous, where there was a great 
smell of hay and boots and pipes and all other 
bucolic-flavored elements, — where games of 
checkers were played on the back of the bel- 
lows with red and white kernels of corn, or with 
beans and coffee, — where a man slept in a box- 
settle at night, to wake up early passengers, — 
where teamsters came in, with wooden-handled 
whips and coarse frocks, reinforcing the bucolic 
flavor of the atmosphere, and middle-aged male 
gossips, sometimes including the squire of the 
neighboring law-office, gathered to exchange a 
question or two about the news, and then fall 
into that solemn state of suspended animation 
which the temperance bar-rooms of modern days 
produC/C in human beings, as the Grotta del Cane 


BO 


ELSIE VENNER. 


does in dogs in the well-known experiments re 
lated by travellers. This bar-room used to bft 
famous for drinking and stoiy-telJing, and some- 
times fighting, in old times. That was when 
there were rows of decanters on the shelf behind 
the bar, and a hissing vessel of hot water ready, 
to make punch, and three or four loggerheads 
(long irons clubbed at the end) were always lying 
in the fire in the cold season, waiting to be 
plunged into sputtering and foaming mugs of 
flip, — a goodly compound, speaking according 
to the flesh, made with beer and sugar, and a 
certain suspicion of strong waters, over which a 
iittle nutmeg being grated, and in it the hot iron 
being then allowed to sizzle, there results a pe- 
culiar singed aroma, which the wise regard as a 
warning to remove themselves at once out of the 
reach of temptation. 

But the bar of Pollard’s Tahvern no longer 
presented its old attractions, and the loggerheads 
had long disappeared from the fire. In place of 
the decanters, were boxes containing “ lozengers,” 
as they were commonly called, sticks of candy in 
jars, cigars in tumblers, a few lemons, grown 
hard-skinned and marvellously shrunken by long 
exposure, but still feebly suggestive of possible 
lemonade, — the whole ornamented by festoons 
of yellow and blue cut fly-paper. On the front 
shelf of the bar stood a large German-silvei 
pitcher of water, and scattered about were ill* 
vonditiuned lamps, with wicks that always wanteci 


ELSIE VENNER. 


91 


picking, which burned red and smoked a good 
deal, and were apt to go out without any obvious 
cause, leaving strong reminiscences of the whale- 
fishery in the circumambient air. 

The common school-houses of Rockland were 
Iwarfed by the grandeur of the Apollinean Insti- 
tute. The master passed one of them, in a walk 
he was taking, soon after his arrival at Rockland 
He looked in at the rows of desks, and recalled 
his late experiences. He could not help laugh- 
ing, as he thought how neatly he had knocked the 
young butcher off his pins. 

“ ‘ A little science is a dangerous thing,’ 

as well as a little ‘ learning,’ ” he said to himself ; 
“ only it ’s dangerous to the fellow you try it on.” 
And he cut him a good stick, and began climbing 
the side of The Mountain to get a look at that 
famous Rattlesnake Ledge. 


ELSIE VENNEB. 




CHAPTER VI. 

THE SUNBEAM AND THE SHADOW 

The virtue of the world is not mainly in its 
leaders. In the midst of the multitude which 
follows there is often something better than in the 
one that goes before. Old generals wanted to 
take Toulon, but one of their young colonels 
showed them how. The junior counsel has been 
known not unfrequently to make a better argu- 
ment than his senior fellow, — if, indeed, he did 
not make both their arguments. Good ministers 
will tell you they have parishioners who beat 
them in the practice of the virtues. A great 
establishment, got up on commercial principles, 
like the Apollinean Institute, might yet be well 
carried on, if it happened to get good teachers. 
And when Master Langdon came to see its man- 
agement, he recognized that there must be fidelity 
and intelligence somewhere among the instruc- 
tors. It was only necessary to look for a moment 
at the fair, open forehead, the still, tranquil eye of 
gentle, habitual authority, the sweet gravity that 
lay upon the lips, to hear the clear answers to the 
pupils’ questions, to notice how every request had 


ELSIE VENNER. 


93 


The force without the form of a command, and 
the young man could not doubt that the good 
genius of the school stood before him in the per- 
son of Helen Barley. 

It was the old story. A poor country- clergy- 
man dies, and leaves a widow and a daughter. 
In Old England the daughter would have eaten 
the bitter bread of a governess in some rich fam- 
ily. In New England she must keep a school. 
So, rising from one sphere to another, she at 
length finds herself the prima donna in the de- 
partment of instruction in IVIr. Silas Peckham’s 
educational establishment. 

What a miserable thing it is to be poor! 
She was dependent, frail, sensitive, conscien- 
tious. She was in the power of a hard, grasp- 
ing, thin-blooded, tough-fibred, trading educator, 
who neither knew nor cared for a tender woman’s 
sensibilities, but who paid her and meant to have 
his money’s worth out of her brains, and as much 
more than his money’s worth as he could get. 
She was consequently, in plain English, over- 
worked, and an overworked woman is always a 
sad sight, — sadder a great deal than an over- 
worked man, because she is so much more fertile 
in capacities of suffering than a man. She has 
60 many varieties of headache, — sometimes as 
if Jael were driving the nail that killed Sisera 
into her temples, — sometimes letting her work 
with half her brain while the other half throbs as 
if it would go to pieces, — sometimes tightening 


94 


ELSIE VENNER. 


round the brows as if her cap-band were a ring 
of iron, — and then her neuralgias, and her back 
aches, and her fits of depression, in which she 
thinks she is nothing and less than nothing, and 
those paroxysms which men speak slightingly of 
as hysterical, — convulsions, that is all, only not 
commonly fatal ones, — so many trials which 
belong to her fine and mobile structure, — that 
she is always entitled to pity, when she is placed 
in conditions which develop her nervous tenden- 
cies. 

The poor young lady’s work had, of course, 
been doubled since the departure of Master Lang- 
don’s predecessor. Nobody knows what the wea- 
riness of instruction is, as soon as the teacher’s 
faculties begin to be overtasked, but those who 
have tried it. The relays of firesh pupils, each 
new set with its exhausting powers in full ac- 
tion, coming one after another, take ofit all the 
reserved forces and faculties of resistance from 
the subject of their draining proces^ 

The day’s work was over, and it was late in 
the evening, when she sat down, tired and faint, 
with a great bundle of girls’ themes or compo- 
itions to read over before she could rest hei 
weary head on the pillow of her narrow trundle- 
bed, and forget for a while the treadmill stair of 
labor she was daily climbing. 

How she dreaded this most forlorn of aU a 
teacher’s tasks ! She was conscientious in hei 
duties, and would insist on reading every sen 


ELSIE TENNER. 


95 


lence, — there was no saying where she might 
hnd faults of grammar or bad spelling. There 
might have been twenty or thirty of these themes 
in the bundle before her. Of course she knew 
pretty weU the leading sentiments they could con- 
tain : that beauty was subject to the accidents 
of time ; that wealth was inconstant, and exist- 
ence uncertain ; that virtue was its own reward ; 
that youth exhaled, like the dewdrop from the 
flower, ere the sun had reached its meridian ; that 
life was o’ershadowed with trials ; that the lessons 
of virtue instilled by our beloved teachers were to 
be our guides through all our future career. The 
imagery employed consisted principally of roses, 
Lilies, birds, clouds, and brooks, with the cele- 
brated comparison of wayward genius to a me- 
teor. Who does not know the small, slanted, 
Italian hand of these girls’- compositions, — their 
stringing together of the good old traditional 
copy-book phrases, their occasional gushes of 
sentiment, their profound estimates of the world, 
sounding to the old folks that read them as 
the experience of a bantam-pullet’s last-hatched 
young one with the chips of its shell on its head 
would sound to a Mother Cary’s chicken, who 
knew the great ocean with all its typhoons and 
tornadoes ? Yet every now and then one is -liable 
to be surprised with strange clairvoyant flashes, 
hat can hardly be explained, except by the mys 
lerious inspiration wnich every now and theu 
seizes a young gnl and exMts her intelligence. 


96 


ELSIE VENIIER. 


just as hysteria in other instances exalts the sen- 
Bibility, — a little something of that which made 
Joan of Arc, and the Burney girl who prophesied 
“ Evelina,” and the Davidson sisters. In the 
midst of these commonplace exercises which INIiss 
Darley read over so carefully were two or three 
that had something of individual flavor about 
them, and here and there there was an image 
or an epithet which showed the footprint of a 
passionate nature, as a fallen scarlet feather 
marks the path the wild flamingo has trodden. 

The young lady teacher read them with a cer- 
tain indifference of manner, as one reads proofs, 

— noting defects of detail, but not commonly 
arrested by the matters treated of. Even Miss 
Charlotte Ann Wood’s poem, beginning 

“ How sweet at evening’s balmy hour,” 

did not excite her. She marked the inevitable 
false rhyme of Cockney and Yankee beginners, 
morn and clawn^ and tossed the verses on the pile 
of papers she had finished. She was looking over 
some of the last of them in a rather listless way, 

— for the poor thing was getting sleepy in spite of 
herself, — when she came to one which seemed 
to rouse her attention, and lifted her drooping 
lids. She looked at it a moment before she 
would touch it. Then she took hold of it by 
one corner and slid it off from the rest. One 
Would have said she was afraid of it, or had som^ 
Undefined antipathy which made it hateful to her 


ELSIE VENDER. 


97 


Such odd fancies are common enough in young 
persons in her nervous state. Many of these 
young people will jump up twenty times a day 
and run to dabble the tips of their fingers in 
Water, after touching the most inoffensive objects. 

This composition was written in a singular 
sharp-pointed, long, slender hand, on a kind 
of wavy, ribbed paper. There was something 
strangely suggestive about the look of it, — but 
exactly of what, Miss Darley either could not or 
did not try to think. The subject of the paper 
was The Mountain, — the composition being a 
sort of descriptive rhapsody. It showed a start- 
ling familiarity with some of the savage scenery 
of the region. One would have said that the 
writer must have threaded its wildest solitudes 
by the light of the moon and stars as well as by 
day. As the teacher read on, her color changed, 
and a kind of tremulous agitation came over her. 
There were hints in this strange paper she did not 
know what to make of. There was something in 
its descriptions and imagery that recalled, — Miss 
Darley could not say what, — but it m.ade her 
frightfully nervous. Still she could not help 
reading, till she came to one passage which so 
agitated her, that the tired and overwearied girPs 
self-control left her entirely. She sobbed once or 
wice, then laughed convulsively, and flung her- 
self on the bed, where she worked out a set hys- 
teric spasm as she best might, without anybody 
io rub her hands and see that she did not hur* 


VOI.. I. 


7 


ELSIE VENNO. 


as 

herself By -and-by she got quiet, rose and went 
to her book-case, took down a volume of Cole- 
ridge, and read a short time, and so to bed, io 
sleep and wake from time to time with a sudden 
start out of uneasy dreams. 

Perhaps it is of no great consequence what it 
was in the composition which set her off into 
this nervous paroxysm. She was in such a 
state that almost any slight agitation would 
have brought on the attack, and it was the ac- 
cident of her transient excitability, very proba- 
bly, which made a trifling cause the seeming oc- 
casion of so much disturbance. The theme was 
signed, in the same peculiar, sharp, slender hand, 
E, Venner^ and was, of course, wu'itten by that 
wild-looking girl who had excited the master’s 
curiosity and prompted his question, as before 
mentioned. 

The next morning the lady-teacher looked pale 
and wearied, naturally enough, but she was in her 
place at the usual hour, and Master Langdou 
in his own. The girls had not yet entered the 
«chool-room. 

“ You have been ill, I am afraid,” said Mr. 
Bernard. 

“ I was not well yesterday,” she answered. “ 1 
had a worry and a kind of fright. It is so dread 
ful to have the charge of all these young souls 
and bodies Every young girl ought to walk 
locked close, arm in arm, between two guar 
dian angels. Sometimes I faint almost witt 


ELSIE VENDER. 


99 


the thought of all that I ought to do, and of my 
own weakness and wants. — Tell me, are there 
not natures born so out of parallel with the lines 
of natural law that nothing short of a miracle can 
bring them right ? ’’ 

Mr. Bernard had speculated somewhat, as all 
houghtful persons of his profession are forced 
to do, on the innate organic tendencies with 
which individuals, families, and races are born. 
He replied, therefore, with a smile, as one to 
whom the question suggested a very familiar 
class of facts. 

“ Why, of course. Each of us is only the foot- 
ing-up of a double column of figures that goes 
back to the first pair. Every unit tells, — and 
some of them are plus^ and some minus. If the 
columns don’t add up right, it is commonly be- 
cause we can’t make out aU the figures. I don’t 
mean to say that something may not be added 
by Nature to make up for losses and keep the 
race to its average, but we are mainly nothing 
lut the answer to a long sum in addition and 
subtraction. No doubt there are people born 
with impulses at every possible angle to the 
parallels of Nature, as you call them. If they 
happen to cut these at right angles, of course 
they are beyond the reach of common influ- 
tnces. Slight obliquities are what we have most 
to do with in education. Penitentiaries and in- 
^ne asylums take care of most of the right-angle 
cases. — I am afraid I ha^e put it too much like 


[00 


ELSIE VENNER. 


a piofessor, and I am only a student, you know 
Pray, what set you to asking me this ? Any 
Btrange cases among the scholars ? ” 

The meek teacher’s blue eyes met the lumi- 
nous glance that came with the question. She, 
too, was of gentle blood, — not meaning by that 
that she was of any noted lineage, but that she 
came of a cultivated stock, never rich, but long 
trained to intellectual callings. A thousand de- 
cencies, amenities, reticences, graces, which no 
one thinks of until he misses them, are the tra- 
ditional right of those who spring from such 
families. And when two persons of this excep- 
tional breeding meet in the midst of the com- 
mon multitude, they seek each other’s company 
at once by the natural law of elective affinity. 
It is wonderful how men and women know theii 
peers. If two stranger queens, sole survivors of 
two shipwrecked vessels, were cast, half-naked, 
on a rock together, each would at once adcbess 
the other as “ Our Royal Sister.” 

Helen Darley looked into the dark eyes of 
Bernard Langdon glittering with the light which 
.‘lashed from them with his question. Not as 
those foolish, innocent country-girls of the small 
village did she look into them, to be fascinated 
and bewildered, but to sound them with a calm 
steadfast purpose. “ A gentleman,” she said to 
herself, as she read his expression and his feat- 
ures with a woman’s rapid, but exhausting 
glance. “A lady,” he said to himself, as he 


ELSIE VENNEE. 


101 


met her questiiming look, — so brief, so quiet, 
yet so assured, as of one whom necessity had 
taught to read faces quickly without offence, as 
children read the faces of parents, as wives read 
the faces of hard-souled husbands. All this was 
but a few seconds’ work, and yet the main poin 
was settled. K there had been any vulgar curi- 
osity or coarseness of any kind lurking in his ex- 
pression, she would have detected it. If she had 
not lifted her eyes to his face so softly and kept 
them there so calmly and withdrawn them so 
quietly, he would not have said to himself, 
“ She is a lady^'' for that word meant a good 
deal to the descendant of the courtly Went- 
worths and the scholarly Langdons. 

“ There are strange people everywhere, Mr. 
Langdon,” she said, “ and I don’t think oui 
school-room is an exception. I am glad you 
believe in the force of transmitted tendencies. 
It would break my heart, if I did not think that 
there are faults beyond the reach of everything 
but God’s special grace. I should die, if I 
thought that my negligence or incapacity was 
alone responsible for the errors and sins of those 
have charge of. Yet there are mysteries I do 
not know how to account for.” She looked all 
louiid the school-room, and then said, in a whis- 
per, “ Mr. Langdon, we had a girl that stole ^ in 
\he school, not long ago. Worse than that, we 
lad a girl who tried to set us on fire. Children 
good people, both of thenL. And we have a 
girl now that frightens me so”^ — -- 


102 


ELSIE VENNER. 


The door opened, and three misses came in to 
take their seats : three types, as it happened, of 
certain classes, into which it would not have been 
difficult to distribute the greater number of the 
girls in the school. — Hannah Martin. Four* 
teen years and three months old. Short-necked 
thick-waisted, round-cheeked, smooth, vacant fore* 
head, large, dull eyes. Looks good-natured, with 
little other expression. Three buns in her bag, 
and a large apple. Has a habit of attacking 
her provisions in school-hours. — Rosa Milbum. 
Sixteen. Brunette, with a rareripe flush in her 
cheeks. Color comes and goes easily. Eyes 
wandering, apt to be downcast. Moody at 
times. Said to be passionate, if irritated. Fin- 
ished in high relief. Carries shoulders well back 
and walks well, as if proud of her woman’s life, 
with a slight rocking movement, being one of the 
wide-flanged pattern, but seems restless, — a hard 
girl to look after. Has a romance in her pocket, 
v/hich she means to read in school-time. — Char^ 
Me Ann Wood. Fifteen. The poetess before 
mentioned. Long, light ringlets, pallid com- 
plexion, blue eyes. Delicate child, half unfold- 
ed. Gentle, but languid and despondent. Does 
not go much with the other girls, but reads a 
good deal, especially poetry, underscoring favor- 
t€ passages. Writes a great many verses, very 
fast, not very correctly ; full of the usual human 
sentiments, expressed in the accustomed phrases 
Undervitalized; Sensibilities not covered witk 


ELSIE VENNER. 


103 


ttieir normal integuments. A negative condi- 
tion, often confounded with genius, and some- 
times running into it. Young people who fall 
out of line through weakness of the active facu.* 
lies are often confounded with those who step out 
of it through strength of the intellectual ones. 

The girls kept coming in, one after another, oi 
in pairs or groups, until the school-room was 
nearly full. Then there w^as a little pause, and a 
light step was heard in the passage. The lady- 
teacher’s eyes turned to the door, and the master’s 
followed them in the same direction. 

A girl of about seventeen entered. She was 
tall and slender, but rounded, with a peculiar un- 
dulation of movement, such as one sometimes 
sees in perfectly untutored country-girls, whom 
Nature, the queen of graces, has taken in hand, 
but more commonly in connection with the very 
highest breeding of the most thoroughly trained 
society. She was a splendid scowling beauty, 
black-browed, with a flash of white teeth which 
was always like a surprise when her lips parted. 
She wore a checkered dress, of a curious pattern, 
and a camel’s-hair scarf twisted a little fantasti- 
cally about her. She went to her seat, which she 
,iad moved a short distance apart from the rest, 
and, sitting down, began playing listlessly with 
ner gold chain, as was a common habit with her, 
coiling it and uncoiling it about her slender wrist, 
and braiding it in with her long, delicate fingers. 
Presently she looked up. Black, piercing eyes, not 


104 


ELSIE VENNEIi. 


large, — a low forehead, as low as that of Clytie 
in the Townley bust, — black hair, twisted in 
heavy braids, — a face that one could not help 
’ooking at for its beauty, yet that one wanted to 
look away from for something in its expression 
and could not for those diamond eyes. They 
were fixed on the lady-teacher now. The latter 
turned her own away, and let them wander ovei 
the other scholars. But they could not help com- 
ing back again for a single glance at the wild 
beauty. The diamond eyes were on her still. 
She turned the leaves of several of her books, as 
if in search of some passage, and, v/hen she 
thought she had waited long enough to be safe, 
once more stole a quick look at the dark girl. 
The diamond eyes were still upon her. She put 
her kerchief to her forehead, which had grown 
slightly moist ; she sighed once, almost shivered, 
for she felt cold ; then, following some ill-defined 
impulse, which she could not resist, she left her 
place and went to the young girPs desk. 

“ W7ial do you want of me, Elsie Venner It 
was a strange question to put, for the girl had 
not signified that she wished the teacher to com 
to her. 

“ Nothing,” she said. “ I thought I could make 
, ou come.” The girl spoke in a low tone, a kind 
of half-whisper. She did not lisp, yet her articu- 
lation of one or two consonants was not abso- 
utely perfect 

“ Where did you get that flower, Elsie ? ” saio 


ELSIE VENDER. 


105 


Miss Darley. It was a rare alpine flower, which 
^vas found only in one spot among the rocks of 
The Mountain. 

“ Where it grew,” said Elsie Venner. “ Takf* 
it” The teacher could not refuse her. The giiTs 
finger-tips touched hers as she took it. How cold 
they were for a girl of such an organization I 

The teacher went back to her seat. She made 
an excuse for quitting the school-room soon after- 
wards. The first thing she did was to fling the 
flower into her fireplace and rake the ashes over 
it. The second was to wash the tips of her fin- 
gers, as if she had been another Lady Macbeth. 
A poor, overtasked, nervous creature, — we must 
not think too much of her fancies. 

After school was done, she finished the talk 
with the master which had been so suddenly in- 
terrupted. There were things spoken of which 
may prove interesting by-and-by, but there are 
other matters we must first attend to. 


ELSIE VENNEE; 


foe 


CHAPTER VIL 

THE EVENT OP THE SEASON. 

“ Mr. and Mrs. Colonel Sprowle’s compliments 
to Mr. Langdon and requests the pleasure of his 
company at a social entertainment on Wednesday 
evening next. 

“ Elm St, Monday, 

On paper of a pinkish color and musky smell, 
with a large at the top, and an embossed bor- 
der Envelop adherent, not sealed. Addressed, 

Langdon Esq. 

Present. 

Brought by H. Frederic Sprowle, youngest son 
of the Colonel, — the H. of course standing for the 
paternal Hezekiah, put in tc please the father, and 
reduced to its initial to please the mother, she 
having a marked preference for Frederic. Boy 
directed to wait for an answer. 

“ Mr. Langdon has the pleasure of accepting 
Mr. and Mrs. Colonel Sprowle’s polite invitation 
for Wednesday evening.’^ 

On plain paper, sealed with an initial. 


ELSIE VENNER. 


107 


In walking along the main street, Mr. Bernard 
had noticed a large house of some pretensions to 
architectural display, namely, unnecessarily pro- 
jecting eaves, giving it a mushroomy aspect, 
wooden mouldings at various available points, 
and a grandiose arched portico. It looked a little 
swaggering by the side of one or two of the man- 
sion-houses that were not far from it^ was painted 
too bright for Mr. Bernard’s taste, had rather too 
fanciful a fence before it, and had some fruit-trees 
planted in the front-yard, which to this fastidious 
young gentleman implied a defective sense of the 
fitness of things, not promising in people who 
lived in so large a house, with a mushroom roof 
and a triumphal arch for its entrance. 

This place was known as “ Colonel Sprowle’s 
villa,” (genteel friends,) — as “ the elegant resi- 
dence of our distinguished fellow-citizen. Colonel 
Sprowle,” (Rockland Weekly Universe,) — as “the 
neew haouse,” (old settlers,) — as “ Spraowle’s 
Folly,” (disaffected and possibly envious neigh- 
bors,) — and in common discourse, as “ the Colo- 
nel’s.” 

Hezekiah Sprowle, Esquire, Colonel Sprowle 
of the Commonwealth’s Militia, was a retired . 
“ merchant.” An India merchant he might, per- 
haps, have been properly called ; for he used to 
deal in West India goods, such as coffee, sugar, 
and molasses, not to speak of rum, — also in tea, 
salt fish, butter and cheese, oil and candles, dried 
fruit, agricultural “p’doose” generally, industrial 


108 


ELSIE VENNER. 


products, such as boots and shoes, and various 
kinds of iron and wooden ware, and at one end 
of the establishment in calicoes and other stuffs, 
— to say nothing of miscellaneous objects of the 
most varied nature, from sticks of candy, whicft 
tempted in the smaller youth with coppers ic 
their fists, up to ornamental articles of apparel, 
pocket-books, breast-pins, gilt-edged Bibles, sta* 
tionery, — in short, everything which was like to 
prove seductive to the rural population. The 
Colonel had made money in trade, and also by 
matrimony. He had married Sarah, daughter 
and heiress of the late Tekel Jordan, Esq., an old 
miser, who gave the town-clock, which carries his 
name to posterity in large gilt letters as a gener- 
ous benefactor of his native place. In due timt 
the Colonel reaped the reward of well-placed af- 
fections. When his wife’s inheritance fell in, he 
thought he had money enough to give up trade, 
and therefore sold out his “ store,” called in some 
dialects of the English language shop, and his 
business. 

Life became pretty hard work to him, of course, 
us soon as he had nothing particular to do. Coun- 
try people with money enough not to have to 
work are in much more danger than city people 
in the same condition. They get a specific look 
and character, which are the same in all the vil- 
lages where one studies them. They very com 
monly fall into a routine, the basis of which is 
going to some lounging-place or other, a bar-room, 


ELSIE VEx'fNER. 


109 


a reading-room, or something of the kind. They 
grow slovenly in dress, and wear the same hat for- 
ever. They have a feeble curiosity for news per- 
haps, which they take daily as a man takes hia 
bitters, and then fall silent and think they are 
hinking. But the mind goes out under this regi- 
men, like a lire without a draught ; and it is not 
very strange, if the instinct of mental self-preser- 
vation drives them to brandy-and-water, which 
makes the hoarse whisper of memory musipal for 
a few brief moments, and puts a weak leer of 
promise on the features of the hollow-eyed future. 
The Colonel was kept pretty well in hand as yet 
by his wife, and though it had happened to him 
once or twice to come home rather late at night 
with a curious tendency to say the same thing 
twice and even three times over, it had always 
been in very cold weather, — and everybody 
knows that no one is safe to drink a couple of 
glasses of wine in a warm room and go suddenly 
out into the cold air. 

Miss Matilda Sprowle, sole daughter of the 
house, had reached the age at which young ladies 
are supposed in technical language to have come 
out, and thereafter are considered to be in com* 
pany, 

“ There’s one piece o’ goods,” said the Colonel 
to his wife, “ that we ha’n’t disposed of, nor got a 
.ustomer for yet. That’s Matildy. I don’t mean 
to set her up at vaandoo. f guess she can have 
her pick of a dozen.” 


no 


ELSIE VENNEIt. 


“ SIic ’s never seen anybody yet,” said Mrs 
Sprowle, who had had a certain project for some 
time, but had kept quiet about it. “ Let ’s have a 
party, and give her a chance to show herself and 
Bee some of the young foUis.” 

The Colonel was not very clear-headed, and b 
thought, naturally enough, that the party was hia 
own suggestion, because his remark led to the 
first starting of the idea. He entered into the 
plan, therefore, with a feeling of pride as well as 
pleasure, and the great project was resolved upon 
in a family council without a dissentient voice. 
This was the party, then, to which Mr. Bernard 
was going. The town had been full of it for a 
week. “Everybody was asked.” So everybody 
said that was invited. But how in respect of 
those who were not asked ? If it had been one 
of the old mansion-houses that was giving a 
party, the boundary between the favored and the 
slighted families would have been known pretty 
well beforehand, and there would have been no 
great amount of grumbling. But the Colonel, 
for all his title, had a forest of poor relations and 
a brushwood swamp of shabby friends, for he had 
Bcrambled up to fortune, and now the time was 
some when he must define his new social posi 
tion. 

This is always an awkward business in town 
or country. An exclusive alliance between twc 
powers is often the same thing as a declaiatioi? 
pf war against a third. Tlockland was soou 


ELSIE VENNER. 


in 


split into a triumphant minority, invited to Mrs, 
Sprowle^s party, and a great majority, uninvited, 
of which the fraction just on the border line be- 
tween recognized “ gentility and the level of the 
ungloved masses was in an active state of excite- 
ment and indignation. 

“ Who is she, I should like to know ? ” saia 
Mrs. Saymore, the tailor’s wife. “ There was 
plenty of folks in Rockland as good as ever Sally 
Jordan was, if she had managed to pick up a mer- 
chant. Other folks could have married merchants, 
if their families wasn’t as wealthy as them old 
skinflints that willed her their money,” etc. etc. 
Mrs. Saymore expressed the feeling of many be- 
side herself. She had, however, a special right to 
be proud of the name she bore. Her husband was 
own cousin to the Say mores of Freestone Ave- 
nue (who write the name Seymour^ and claim to 
be of the Duke of Somerset’s family, showing a 
clear descent from the Protector to Edward Sey- 
mour, (1630,) — then a jump that would break a 
herald’s neck to one Seth Saymore, (1783,) — 
from whom to the head of the present family the 
line is clear again). Mrs. Saymore, the tailor’s 
wife, was not invited, because her husband mended 
clothes. If he had confined himself strictly to 
making them, it would have put a different face 
upon the matter. 

The landlord of the Mountain House and his 
lady were invited to IMrs. Sprowle’s party. No^ 
lo the landlord of Pollard's Tahvern and his lady 


112 


EI.SIE VENNER. 


Whereupon the latter vowed that they would 
have a party at their house too, and made ar- 
rangements for a dance of twenty or thirty couples, 
to be followed by an entertainment. Tickets to 
this “ Social Ball ’’ were soon circulated, and, 
being accessible to all at a moderate price, ad- 
mission to the “ Elegant Supper ” included, this 
second festival promised to be as merry, if not aa 
select, as the great party. 

Wednesday came. Such doings had never 
been heard of in Rockland as went on that day 
at the “ villa.’’ The carpet had been taken up in 
the long room, so that the young folks might have 
a dance. Miss Matilda’s piano had been moved 
in, and two fiddlers and a clarionet-player en- 
gaged to make music. All kinds of lamps had 
been put in requisition, and even colored wax- 
candles figured on the mantel-pieces. The cos- 
tumes of the family had been tried on the day 
before : the Colonel’s black suit fitted exceedingly 
well; his lady’s velvet dress displayed her con- 
tours to advantage ; Miss Matilda’s flowered silk 
was considered superb ; the eldest son of the fam- 
ily, hlr. T. Jordan Sprowle, called affectionately 
and elegantly “ Geordie,” voted himself “ stun- 
nin’ ” ; and even the small youth who had borne 
Mr. Bernard’s invitation was effective in a new 
jacket and trousers, buttony in front, and baggy 
hi the reverse aspect, as is wont to be the case 
with the home-made garments of inland vcung 
iters. 


ELSIE VENDER. 


113 


Great preparations had been made for the re- 
fectioji which was to be part of the entertain- 
ment. There was much clinking of borrowea 
spoons, which were to be carefully counted, and 
much clicking of borrowed china, which was to 
be tenderly handled, — for nobody in the country 
keeps those vast closets full of such things which 
one may see in rich city-houses. Not a great 
deal could be done in the way of flowers, foi 
there were no green-houses, and few plants were 
out as yet ; but there were paper ornaments 
for the candlesticks, and colored mats for the 
lamps, and all the tassels of the curtains and bells 
were taken out of those brown linen bags, in 
which, for reasons hitherto undiscovered, they are 
habitually concealed in some households. In the 
remoter apartments every imaginable operation 
was going on at once, — roasting, boiling, bak- 
ing, beating, rolling, pounding in mortars, frying, 
freezing ; for there was to be ice-cream to-night 
of domestic manufacture ; — and in the midst of 
all these labors, Mrs. Sprowle and Miss Matilda 
were moving about, directing and helping as they 
best might, all day long. When the evening 
came, it might be feared they would not be in 
just the state of mind and body to entertain 
company. 

One would like to give a party now and 

then, if one could be a billionnaire. — “ Antoine, 
[ am going to have twenty people to dine to- 
liay.” “ Bien^ Madame^ Not a word or thought 


VOL. I. 


114 


ELSIE TENNER. 


more about it, but get home in season to dress, 
and come down to your ovm table, one of youi 
own guests. — “ Giuseppe, we are to have a party 
a week from to-night, — five hundred invitations, 
•— there is the list.” The day comes. “ Madam j 
do you remember you have your party to-night ? ” 
Why, so I have ! Everything right ? supper and 
all ? ” “ All as it should be. Madam.” “ Send up 
Victorine.” “ Victorine, full toilet for this even- 
ing, — pink, diamonds, and emeralds. Coiffeur 
at seven. AllezP — Billionism, or even million- 
ism, must be a blessed kind of state, with health 
and clear conscience and youth and good looks, 
— but most blessed in this, that it takes off all 
the mean cares which give people the three wrin- 
kles between the eyebrows, and leaves them free 
to have a good time and make others have a 
good time, all the way along from the charity 
that tips up unexpected loads of wood before 
widows’ houses, and leaves foundling turkeys 
upon poor men’s door-steps, and sets lean clergy- 
men crying at the sight of anonymous fifty-dollar 
bills, to the taste which orders a perfect banquet 
in such sweet accord with every sense that every- 
body’s nature flowers out full-blown in its golden- 
glowing, fragrant atmosphere, 

A great party given by the smaller gentry 

of the interior is a kind of solemnity, so to speak. 
It involves so much labor and anxiety, — its spas- 
modic splendors are so violently contrasted with 
the homeliness of every-day family-life, — it ii 


ELSIE VENNER. 


lit 


«uch a formidable matter to break in the raw 
subordinates to the manege of the cloak-room and 
the table^ — there is such a terrible uncertainty in 
the results of unfamiliar culinary operations, — so 
many feuds are involved in drawing that fatal 
line which divides the invited from the uninvited 
fraction of the local universe, — th at, if the notes 
requested the pleasure of the guests’ company on 
“ this solemn occasion,” they would pretty nearly 
express the true state of things. 

The Colonel himself had been pressed into the 
service. He had pounded something in the great 
mortar. He had agitated a quantity of sweet- 
ened and thickened milk in what was called a 
cream-freezer. At eleven o’clock, a. m., he retired 
for a space. On returning, his color was noted 
to be somewhat heightened, and he showed a dis- 
position to be jocular with the female help, — 
v/hich tendency, displaying itself in livelier dem- 
onstrations than were approved at head-quarters, 
led to his being detailed to out-of-door duties, 
such as raking gravel, arranging places for horses 
to be hitched to, and assisting in the construction 
of an arch of winter-green at the porch of Ihe 
mansion. 

A whiff from Mr. Geordie’s cigar refreshed the 
tv iling females from time to time ; for the win- 
dows had to be opened occasionally, while all these 
operations were going on, and the youth amused 
himself with inspecting the interior, encouraging 
the operatives now and then in the phrases coin* 


116 


ELSIE VENNER. 


monly employed by genteel young men, — for he 
had perused an odd volume of “ Verdant Green,” 
and was acquainted with a Sophomore from one 
of the fresh-water colleges. — “ Go it on the feed ! ” 
exclaimed this spirited young man. “ Nothin’ lik 
a good spread. Grub enough and good liquor 
that’s the ticket. Guv’nor’ll do the heavy po- 
lite, and let me alone for polishin’ off the young 
charmers.” And Mr. Geordie looked expressively 
.\t a handmaid who was rolling gingerbread, as if 
be were rehearsing for “ Don Giovanni.” 

Evening came at last, and the ladies were 
forced to leave the scene of their labors to array 
themselves for the coming festivities. The tables 
had been set in a back room, the meats were 
ready, the pickles were displayed, the cake was 
baked, the blanomange had stiffened, and the 
ice-cream had frozen. 

At half past seven o’clock, the Colonel, in cos- 
tume, came into the front parlor, and proceeded 
to light the lamps. Some were good-humored 
enough and took the hint of a lighted match at 
once. Others were as vicious as they could be, — 
would not light on any terms, any more than if 
they were filled with water, or lighted and smoke 
one side of the chimney, or sputtered a few sparks 
and sulked themselves out, or kept up a faint 
show of burning, so that their ground glasses 
.ooked as feebly phosphorescent as so many inva- 
lid fireflies. With much coaxing and screwing 
wid pricking, a tolerable illumination was at las' 


ELSIE YENNER. 


117 


achieved. At eight there was a grand rustling ol 
silks, and Mrs. and Miss Sprowle descended from 
their respective bowers or boudoirs. Of course 
they were pretty well tired by this time, and very 
glad to sit down, — having the prospect before 
them of being obliged to stand for hours. The 
Colonel walked about the parlor, inspecting his 
regiment of lamps. By-and-by IVIr. Geordie en- 
tered. 

“ Mph ! mph ! ” he sniffed, as he came in. 
You smell of lamp-smoke here.” 

That always galls people, — to have a new- 
comer accuse them of smoke or close air, which 
they have got used to and do not perceive. The 
Colonel raged at the thought of his lamps’ smok- 
ing, and tongued a few anathemas inside of his 
shut teeth, but turned down two or three wicks 
that burned higher than the rest. 

Master H. Frc^deric next made his appearance, 
with questionable marks upon his fingers and 
countenance. Had been tampering with some- 
thing brown and sticky. His elder brother grew 
playful, and caught him by the baggy reverse of 
his more essential garment. 

“ Hush ! ” said Mrs. Sprowle, — “ there’s the 
beU!” 

Everybody took position at once, and began to 
ook very smiling and altogether at ease. — False 
alarm. Only a parcel of spoons, — “loaned,” as 
the inland folks say when they mean lent, by a 
neighbor. 


118 


ELSIE VENNER. 


‘‘ Better late than never ! ’’ said the Colone. 

** let me heft them spoons.” 

Mrs. Sprowle came down into her chair again 
as if all her bones had been bewitched out of her. 

“ I’m pretty nigh beat out already,” said she, 
“ before any of the folks has come.” 

They sat silent awhile, waiting for the first 
arrival. How nervous they got ! and how their 
senses were sharpened! 

“ Hark ! ” said Miss Matilda, — ‘‘ what’s that 
rumblin’ ? ” 

It was a cart going over a bridge more than a 
mile off, which at any other time they would not 
have heard. After this there was a lull, and poor 
Mrs. Sprowle’s head nodded once or twice. Pres- 
ently a crackling and grinding of gravel ; — how 
much that means, when we are waiting for those 
whom we long or dread to see ! Then a change 
in the tone of the gravel-crackling. 

“ Yes, they have turned in at our gate. They’re 
tomin’ ! Mother ! mother 1 ” 

Everybody in position, smiling and at ease. 
Bell rings. Enter the first set of visitors. The 
Event of the Season has begun. 

“ Law ! it’s nothin’ but the Cranes’ folks ! I 
do believe Mahala’s come in that old green de- 
laine she wore at the Surprise Party!” 

Miss Matilda had peeped through a crack of 
the door and made this observation and the re- 
mark founded thereon. Continuing her attitude 
of attention, she overheard Mrs. Crane and hei 


ELSIE VENlfER. 


119 


hvo daughters conversing in the attiring- room, up 
one flight. 

“ How fine everything is in the great house ! 
said Mrs. Crane, — “jest look at the pictcrs ! ” 

“ Matildy Sprowle’s drawins,’’ said Ada Azuba^ 
the eldest daughter. 

“ I should think so,’’ said Mahala Crane, her 
younger sister, — a wide-awake girl, who hadn’t 
been to school for nothing, and performed a little 
on the lead pencil herself. “ I should like to know 
whether that’s a hay-cock or a mountain ! ” 

Miss Matilda winced ; for this must refer to 
her favorite monochrome, executed by laying on 
heavy shadows and stumping them down into 
mellow harmony, — the style of drawing which 
is taught in six lessons, and the kind of specimen 
which is executed in something less than one 
hour. Parents and other very near relatives are 
sometimes gratified with these productions, and 
cause them to be framed and hung up, as in the 
present instance. 

“ I guess we won’t go down jest yet,” said IVIrs. 
Crane, “ as folks don’t seem to have come.” 

So she began a systematic inspection of the 
dressing-room and its conveniences. 

“ Mahogany four-poster, — come from the Jor- 
dans’, I cal’late. Marseilles quilt. Ruffles all 
round the piller. Chintz curtings, — jest put up, 
— o’ purpose for the party I’ll lay ye a do Jar. — 
What a nice washbowl ! ” (Taps it with a white 
gnuckle belonging to a red finger.) “ Stone cha^ 


120 


ELSIE VENNER. 


ney. — Here’s a bran’ -new brush and comb, — and 
here’s a scent-bottle. Come here, girls, and fix 
yourselves in the glass, and scent your pocket- 
handkerchers 

And Mrs. Crane bedev/ed her own kerehief 
with some of the eau de Cologne of native man- 
ufacture, — said on its label to be much superior 
to the German article. 

It was a relief to Mrs. and the Miss Cranea 
when the bell rang and the next guests were 
admitted. Deacon and Mrs. Soper, — Deacon 
Soper of the Rev. Mr. Fairweather’s church, and 
his lady. Mrs. Deacon Soper was directed, of 
course, to the ladies’ dressing-room, and her hus- 
band to the other apartment, where gentlemen 
were to leave their outside coats and hats. Then 
came Mr. and Mrs. Briggs, and then the three 
Miss Spinneys, then Silas Peckham, Head of 
the Apollinean Institute, and Mrs. Peckham, and 
more after them, until at last the ladies’ dressing- 
room got so full that one might have thought it 
was a trap none of them could get out of. In 
truth, they all felt a little awkwardly. Nobody 
wanted to be first to venture down-stairs. At last 
Mr. Silas Peckham thought it was time to make 
a move for the parlor, and for this purpose pre- 
sented himself at the door )f the ladies’ dressing 
room. 

“ Lorindy, my dear ! ” he exclaimed to Mrs 
Peckham, — “ I think there can be no improprieti 
Ji our joining the family down-stairs.” 


ELSIE VENNER. 


121 


Mrs. Peckham laid her large, flaccid arm in the 
Iharp angle made by the black sleeve which held 
the bony limb her husband offered, and the two 
took the stair and struck out for the parlor. The 
ice was broken, and the dressing-room began to 
empty itself into the spacious, lighted apartments 
below. 

Mr. Silas Peckham slid into the room with 
Mrs. I’eckham alongside, like a shad convoying 
a jelly-fish. 

“ Good evenin’, Mrs. Sprowle ! I hope I see 
you well this evenin’. How’s your haalth, Col- 
onel Sprowle ? ” 

“ Very well, much obleeged to you. Hope you 
and your good lady are well. Much pleased to 
see you. Hope you’ll enjoy yourselves. We’ve 
laid out to have everything in good shape, — 
spared no trouble nor ex” 

“ pense,” — said Silas Peckham. 

Mrs. Colonel Sprowle, who, you remember, 
was a Jordan, had nipped the Colonel’s state- 
ment in the middle of the word IVIr. Peckham 
finished, with a look that jerked him like one 
of those sharp twitches women keep giving a 
horse when they get a chance to drive one. 

IVIr. and Mrs. Crane, Miss Ada Azuba, and 
Miss Mahala Crane made their entrance. There 
had been a discussion about the necessity and 
propriety of inviting this family, tlie head of 
which kept a small shop for hats and boots and 
shoes. The Colonel’s casting vote had carried 


122 


ELSIE VENNER. 


it in the affirmative. — How terribly the poor old 
gi-een de-laine did cut up in the blaze of so many 
lamps and candles. 

Deluded little wretch, male or female, in 

bav/n or country, going to your first great party, 
how little you know the nature of the ceremony 
in which you are to bear the part of victim! 
What! are not these garlands and gauzy mists 
and many-colored streamers which adorn you, is 
not this music which welcomes you, this radi- 
ance that glows about you, meant solely for your 
enjoyment, young miss of seventeen or eighteen 
summers, now for the first time swimming into 
the frothy, chatoyant, sparkling, undulating sea 
of laces and silks and satins, and white-armed 
flower-crowned maidens struggling in their waves 
beneath the lustres that make the false summer 
of the drawing-room? 

Stop at the threshold! This is a hall of judg- 
ment you are entering ; the court is in session ; 
and if you move five steps forward, you will be 
at its bar. 

There was a tribunal once in France, as you 
may remember, called the Chamhre Ardente^ the 
Burning Chamber. It was hung all round with 
lamps, and hence its name. The burning cham- 
ber for the trial of young maidens is the blazing 
ball room. What have they full-dressed you, or 
rather half-dressed you for, do you think? To 
make you look preixy, of course ! — Why have 
they hung a chandelier above you, flickering ai 


ELSIE VENEER. 


123 


over with flames, so that it searches you like the 
noonday sun, and your deepest dimple cannot 
hold a shadow ? To give brilliancy to the gay 
scene, no doubt ! — No, my dear ! Society is in* 
tpecting you, and it finds undisguised surfaces 
and strong lights a convenience in the process. 
The dance answers the purpose of the revolving 
pedestal upon which the “ White Captive ” turns, 
to show us the soft, kneaded marble, wliich looks 
as if it had never been hard, in all its manifold 
aspects of living loveliness. No mercy for you, 
my love ! Justice, strict justice, you shall cer- 
tainly have, — neither more nor less. For, look 
you, there are dozens, scores, hundreds, with 
whom you must be weighed in the balance; 
and you have got to learn that the “ struggle 
for life ” Mr. Charles Darwin talks about reaches 
to vertebrates clad in crinoline, as well as to mob 
lusks in shells, or articulates in jointed scales, or 
anything that fights for breathing-room and food 
and love in any coat of fur or feather! Happy 
they who can flash defiance from bright eyes and 
snowy shoulders back into the pendants of the 
insolent lustres ! 

Miss Mahala Crane did not have these re- 
flections ; and no young girl ever did, or ever will 
thank Heaven! Her keen eyes sparkled under 
her plainly parted hair and the green de-laine 
moulded itself in those unmistakable lines of 
natural symmetry in which Nature indulges a 
small shopkeeper’s daughter occasionally as well 


124 


ELSIE VENNER. 


as a wholesale dealer’s young ladies. She would 
have liJced a new dress as much as an}^ other girl 
but she meant to go and have a good time ai 
any rate. 

The guests were now arriving in the drawing- 
room pretty fast, and the Colonel’s hand began to 
burn a good deal with the sharp squeezes which 
many of the visitors gave it. Conversation, which 
had begun like a summer-shower, in scattering 
drops, was fast becoming continuous, and occa- 
sionally rising into gusty swells, with now and 
then a broad-chested laugh from some Captain 
or Major or other military personage, — for it may 
be noted that all large and loud men in the un- 
paved districts bear military titles. 

Deacon Soper came up presently, and entered 
into conversation with Colonel Sprowle. 

“ I hope to see our pastor present this evenin’,” 
said the Deacon. 

“I don’t feel quite sure,” the Colonel an- 
swered. “ His dyspepsy has been bad on him 
lately. He wrote to say, that. Providence per- 
mittin’, it would be agreeable to him to take a 
part in the exercises of the evenin’ ; but I mis- 
trusted he didn’t mean to come. To tell the 
truth. Deacon Soper, I rather guess he don’t like 
the idee of dancin’, and some of the other little 
siirangements.” 

“ Well,” said the Deacon, “ I know there’s 
some condemns dancin’. I’ve heerd a good deal 
of talk about it among the folks round. Som9 


ELSIE VENNER. 


125 


nave it that it never brings a blessin’ on a house 
to have dancin’ in it. Judge Tileston died, you 
remember, within a month after he had his great 
ball) twelve year ago, and some thought it was in 
the natur’ of a judgment. I don’t believe in any 
of them notions. K a man happened to be struck 
dead the night after he’d been givin’ a ball,” (the 
Colonel loosened his black stock a little, and 
winked and swallowed two or three times,) “ ] 
shouldn’t call it a judgment, — I should call it a 
coincidence. But I’m a little afraid our pastoi 
won’t come. Somethin’ or other’s the mattei 
with Mr. Fairweather. I should sooner expect 
to see the old Doctor come over out of the Ortho- 
dox parsonage-house.” 

“ I’ve asked him,” said the ColoneL 

“ Well ? ” said Deacon Soper. 

‘‘He said he should like to come, but he didn’t 
know what his people would say. For his part, 
he loved to see young folks havin’ their sports 
together, and very often felt as if he should like 
to be one of ’em himself. ‘ But,’ says I, ‘ Doc- 
tor, I don’t say there won’t be a little dancin’. 

Don’t!’ says he, ‘for I want Letty to go,’ (she’s 
his granddaughter that’s been stayin’ with him,' 
* and Letty’s mighty fond of dancin’. You know,’ 
says the Doctor, ‘ it isn’t my business to settle 
whether other people’s children should dance or 
not.’ And the Doctor lOoked as if he should like 
to rigadoon and sashy across as well as the young 
one he was talkin’ about. He ’s got blood in him 


126 


ELSIE VENNER. 


the old Doctor has. I wish our little man and 
liini would swop pulpits.” 

Deacon Soper started and looked up into the 
Colonel’s face, as if to see whether he was in 
earnest. 

Mr. Silas Peckliam and his lady joined the 
group. 

‘‘ Is this to be a Temperance Celebration, Mrs. 
Sprowle?” asked Mr. Silas Peckham. 

Mrs. Sprowle replied, “ that there would be 
[emonade and srub for those that preferred such 
drinks, but that the Colonel had given folks to 
understand that he didn’t mean to set in judg- 
ment on the marriage in Canaan, and that those 
that didn’t like srub and such things would find 
somethin’ that would suit them better.” 

Deacon Soper’s countenance assumed a certain 
air of restrained cheerfulness. The conversation 
rose into one of its gusty paroxysms just then. 
Master H. Frederic got behind a door and began 
performing the experiment of stopping and un- 
stopping his ears in rapid alternation, greatly 
rejoicing in the singular effect of mixed conver- 
sation chopped very small, like the contents of 
mince-pie, — or meat pie, as it is more forcibly 
called in the deep-rutted villages lying along the 
unsalted streams. All at once it grew silent just 
*uund the door, where it had been loudest, — and 
the silence spread itself like a stain, till it hushed 
everything but a few corner-duets. A dark, 
saddooking, middle-aged gentleman entered tht 


ELSIE VENDER. 


127 


parlor, with a young lady on his arm, --hia 
daughter, as it seemed, for she was not wholly 
unlike him in feature, and of the same dark com* 
plexion. 

“Dudley Venner!” exclaimed a dozen people, 
Ui startled, but half-suppressed tones. 

“ What can have brought Dudley out to-night? ” 
said Jefferson Buck, a young fellow, who had 
been interrupted in one of the corner-duets which 
he was executing in concert with Miss Susy Pet- 
tingill. 

“How do I know, Jeff?” was Miss Susy’s 
answer. Then, after a pause, — “ Elsie made 
him come, I guess. Go ask Dr. Kittredge ; he 
knows all about ’em both, they say.” 

Dr. Kittredge, the leading physician of Rock- 
*hnd, was a shrewd old man, who looked pretty 
keenly into his patients through his spectacles, 
and pretty widely at men, women, and things in 
general over them. Sixty-three years old, — just 
the year of the grand climacteric. A bald crown, 
as every doctor should have. A consulting prac- 
titioner’s mouth ; that is, movable round the cor- 
ners while the case is under examinalion, but 
both corners well drawn down and kept so when 
the final opinion is made up. In fact, the Doc- 
tor was often sent for to act as “caounsel,” ail 
dver the county, and beyond it. He kept three 
or four horsss, sometimes riding in the saddle, 
commonly driving in a sulky, pretty fast, and 
'•coking straight before him, so that people got 


128 


£LSIE VENNER. 


out of the way of bowing to him as he passed 
on the road. There was some talk about his not 
being so long-sighted as other folks, but his old 
patients laughed and looked knowing when this 
was spoken of. 

The Doctor knew a good many things besides 
how to drop tinctures and shake out powders. 
Thus, he knew a horse, and, what is harder to 
understand, a horse-dealer, and was a match for 
him. He knew what a nervous woman is, and 
how to manage her. He could tell at a glance 
when she is in that condition of unstable equi- 
librium in which a rough word is like a blow to 
her, and the touch of un magnetized fingers re- 
verses all her nervous currents. It is not every- 
body that enters into the soul of Mozart’s or 
Beethoven’s harmonies ; and there are vital sym- 
phonies in B flat, and other low, sad keys, which 
a doctor may knov/ as little of as a hurdy-gurdy 
;)layer of the essence of those divine musical mys- 
teries. The Doctor knew the difference between 
what men say and what they mean as well as 
most people. When he was listening to common 
talk, he was in the habit of looking over his spec- 
tacles; if he lifted his head so as to look through 
them at the person talking, he was busier with 
that person’s thoughts than with his words. 

Jefferson Buck was not bold enough to confront 
the Doctor with Miss Susy’s question, for he did 
not look as if he were in the mood to answei 
queries put by curious young people His eye* 


05IE VENNER 


129 


were fixed steadily on the dark girl, every move- 
ment of whom he seemed to follow. 

She was, indeed, an apparition of wild beauty, 
BO unlike the girls about her that it seemed noth- 
ing more than natural, that, when she moved, the 
groups should part to let her pass through them, 
and that she should carry the centre of all looks 
and thoughts wnth her. She was dressed to please 
her own fancy, evidently, with small rk^^rd to the 
modes declared correct by the Rockland milliners 
and mantua-makers. Her heavy black hair lay 
in a braided coil, with a long gold pin shot 
through it like a javelin. Round her neck was 
a golden torque^ a round, cord-like chain, such as 
the Gauls used to wear: the “Dying Gladiator’’ 
has it. Her dress was a grayish watered silk ; hei 
collar was pinned with a flashing diamond brooch, 
the stones looking as fresh as morning dew-drops, 
but the silver setting of the past generation ; her 
arms were bare, round, but slender rather than 
large, in keeping with her lithe round figure. On 
her wrists she wore bracelets : one was a cir- 
clet of enamelled scales ; the other looked as if it 
might have been Cleopatra’s asp, with its body 
turned to gold and its eyes to emeralds. 

Her father — for Dudley Venner was her father 
. — looked like a man of culture and breeding, but 
melancholy and with a distracted air, as one 
whose life had met some fatal cross or blight 
He saluted hardly anybody except his entertain- 
ers and the Doctor. One would have said, ta 


VOIi. I. 


130 


ELSIE VENNER. 


ook at him, that he was not at the party 
choice; and it was natural enough to think, with 
Susy Pettingill, that it must have been a frcal 
of the dark girPs which brought him there, for he 
had the air of a shy and sad-hearted recluse. 

It was hard to say what could have brought 
Elsie Venner to the party. Hardly anybody 
seemed to know her, and she seemed not at aU 
disposed to make acquaintances. Here and there 
was one of the older girls from the Institute, 
but she appeared to have nothing in common 
with them. Even in the school-room, it may be 
remembered, she sat apart by her own choice, 
and now in the midst of the crowd she made a 
circle of isolation round herself. Drawing hei 
arm out of her father’s, she stood against the 
wall, and looked, with a strange, cold glitter in 
her eyes, at the crowd which moved and babbled 
before her. 

The old Doctor came up to her by-and-by. 

“ Well, Elsie, I am quite surprised to find you 
here. Do tell me how you happened to do such 
a good-natured thing as to let us see you at 
such a great party.” 

“ It’s been dull at the mansion-house,” she said, 
* and I wanted to get out of it. It’s too lonely 
there, — there’s nobody to hate since Dick’s gone.” 

The Doctor laughed good-naturedly, as if this 
were an amusing bit of pleasantry, — but he lifted 
his head and dropped his eyes a little, so as to 
lee her through his spectacles. She narrowea 


ELSIE VENNER. 


131 


her lids slightly, as one often sees a sleepy cat 
narrow hers, — somewhat as you may remembej 
our famous Margaret used to, if you remember 
her at all, so that her eyes looked very srnaU, 
but bright as the diamonds on her breast. The 
old Doctor felt very oddly as she looked at him ; 
he did not like the feeling, so he dropped his head 
and lifted his eyes and looked at her over his 
spectacles again. 

“ And how have you all been at the mansion- 
house?’^ said the Doctor. 

“ Oh, well enough. But Dick’s gone, and 
there’s nobody left but Dudley and I and the 
people. I’m tired of it. What kills anybody 
quickest, Doctor ? ” Then, in a whisper, “ I ran 
away again the other day, you know.” 

“ Where did you go ? ” The Doctor spoke in 
a low, serious tone. 

“ Oh, to the old place. Here, I brought this 
for you.” 

The Doctor started as she handed him a flower 
of the Atragene Americana^ for he knew that 
there was only one spot where it grew, and that 
not one where any rash foot, least of all a thin- 
shod woman’s foot, should venture, 

“ How long were you gone ? ” said the Dcctor. 

“ Only one night. You should have heard the 
horns blowing and the guns firing. Dudley was 
frightened out of his wits. Old Sophy told him 
she ’d had a dream, and that I should be found 
in Dead-Man’s Hollow, with a great rock lying 


132 


ELSIE VENNER. 


on me. They hunted all over it, but they didn’t 
find me, — I was farther up.” 

Doctor Kittredge looked cloudy and worried 
while she was speaking, but forced a pleasant 
professional smile, as he said cheerily, and as if 
wishing to change the subject, — 

“ Have a good dance this evening, Elsie. The 
fiddlers are tuning up. Where ’s the young mas- 
ter ? Has he come yet ? or is he going to be late, 
with the other great folks ? ” 

The girl turned away without answering, and 
looked toward the door. 

The “ great folks,” meaning the mansion-house 
gentry, were just beginning to come; Dudley 
Venner and his daughter had been the first of 
them. Judge Thornton, white-headed, fresh-faced, 
as good at sixty as he was at forty, with a young- 
ish second wife, and one noble daughter, Arabella, 
who, they said, knew as much law as her father, 
a stately, Portia-like girl, fit for a premier’s wife, 
not like to find her match even in the great cities 
she sometimes visited; the Trecothicks, the family 
of a merchant, (in the larger sense,) who, having 
made himself rich enough by the time he had 
reached mfddle life, threw down his ledger as 
Sylla did his dagger, and retired to make a little 
paradise around him in one of the stateliest res- 
idences of the town, a family inheritance ; the 
Vaughans, an old Rockland race, descended from 
its first settlers, Toryish in tendency in Revolu 
lionary times, and barely escaping confiscatioi 


ELSIE TENNER. 


isn 

)r worse; the Dunhams, a new family, dating 
its gentility only as far back as the Honorable 
Washington Dunham, M. C., but turning out a 
clever boy or two that went to college, and some 
showy girls with white necks and fat arms who 
had picked up professional husbands : these were 
the principal mansion-house people. All of them 
had made it a point to come ; and as each of them 
entered, it seemed to Colonel and Mrs. Sprowde 
that the lamps burned up with a more cheerfu. 
light, and that the fiddles which sounded from 
the uncarpeted room were all half a tone higher 
and half a beat quicker. 

Mr. Bernard came in later than any of them ; 
he had been busy with his new duties. He 
looked well ; and that is saying a good deal ; for 
nothing but a gentleman is endurable in full 
dress. Hair that masses well, a head set on with 
an air, a neckerchief tied cleverly by an easy, prac- 
tised hand, close-fitting gloves, feet well shaped 
and well covered, — these advantages can make 
us forgive the odious sable broadcloth suit, which 
appears to have been adopted by society on the 
same principle that condemned all the Venetian 
gondolas to perpetual and uniform blackness. Mr. 
Bernard, introduced by Mr. Geordie, made his bow 
to the Colonel and his lady and to Miss Matilda, 
Crom whom he got a particularly gracious curtsy, 
und then began looking about him for acquaint- 
ances. He found two or three faces he knew, — 
tnany more strangers. There was Sfias Peckliam, 


134 


ELSIE VENNER. 


— there was no mistaking him; there was the 
inelastic amplitude of Mrs. Peckham ; few of the 
Apollinean girls, of course, they not being rec- 
ognized members of society, — but there is one 
with the flame in her cheeks and the fire in hex 
eyes, the girl of vigorous tints and emphatic out- 
lines, whom we saw entering the school-room the 
other day. Old Judge Thornton has his eyes on 
her, and the Colonel steals a look every now and 
then at the red brooch which lifts itself so superb- 
ly into the light, as if he thought it a wonder- 
fully becoming ornament. Mr. Bernard himself 
was not displeased with the general effect of the 
rich-blooded school-girl, as she stood under the 
bright lamps, fanning herself in the warm, lan- 
guid air, fixed in a kind of passionate surprise at 
the new life which seemed to be flowering out in 
her consciousness. Perhaps he looked at her 
somewhat steadily, as some others had done ; at 
any rate, she seemed to feel that she was looked 
at, as people often do, and, turning her eyes sud- 
denly on him, caught his own on her face, gave 
him a half-bashful smile, and threw in a blush 
involuntarily which made it more charming. 

“ What can I do better,” he said to himself, 
“than have a dance with Rosa Milburn?” So 
he carried his handsome pupil into the next 
room and took his place with her in a cotillon. 
Whether the breath of the Goddess of Love 
could intoxicate like the cup of Circe, — whethej 
a woman is ever phosphorescent with the luml 


ELSIE VENNEK. 


135 


nous vapor of life that she exhales, — these and 
other questions which relate to occult influences 
exercised by certain women, we will not now 
discuss. It is enough that Mr. Bernard was sen* 
fiible of a strange fascination, not wholly new to 
nim, nor unprecedented in the history of human 
experience, but always a revelation when it comes 
over us for the first or the hundredth time, so 
pale is the most recent memory by the side of 
the passing moment with the flush of any new- 
born passion on its cheek. Remember that Na- 
ture makes every man love all women, and trusts 
the trivial matter of special choice to the com- 
monest accident. 

If Mr. Bernard had had nothing to distract his 
attention, he might have thought too much about 
his handsome partner, and then gone home and 
dreamed about her, which is always dangerous, 
and waked up thinking of her stiU, and then be- 
gun to be deeply interested in her studies, and 
BO on, through the whole syllogism which ends 
in Nature’s supreme quod erat demonstrandum. 
What was there to distract him or disturb him ? 
He did not know, — but there was something. 
This sumptuous creature, this Eve just within 
the gate of an untried Paradise, untutored in the 
ways of the world, but on tiptoe to reach the 
fruit of the tree of knowledge, — alive to th« 
moist vitality of that warm atmosphere palpitat 
ing with voices and music, as the flower of somt 
dicec'ous plant which has grown in a lone corner 


136 


ELSIE VENNER. 


and suddenly unfolding its corolla on some hot- 
breathing June evening, feels that the air is per- 
fumed with strange odors and loaded with golden 
dust wafted from those other blossoms wtth which 
its double life is shared, — this almost over-worn 
anized woman might well have bewitched him, 
but that he had a vague sense of a counter-charm. 
It was, perhaps, only the same consciousness that 
some one was looking at him which he himself 
had just given occasion to in his partner. Pres- 
ently, in one of the turns of the dance, he felt 
his eyes drawn to a figure he had not distinctly' 
recognized, though he had dimly felt its presence, 
and saw that Elsie Venner was looking at him 
as if she saw nothing else but him. He was 
not a nervous person, like the poor lady teacher, 
yet the glitter of the diamond eyes affected him 
strangely. It seemed to disenchant the air, so 
full a moment before of strange attractions. He 
became silent, and dreamy, as it were. The 
round-limbed beauty at his side crushed her 
gauzy draperies against him, as they trod the 
figure of the dance together, but it was no more 
to him than if an old nurse had laid her hand 
on his sleeve. The young girl chafed at hig 
seeming neglect, and her imperious blood mount- 
ed into her cheeks ; but he appeared unconscious 
of it. 

‘ There is one of our young ladies I musl 
speak to,” he said, — and was just leaving hi^ 
partner’s side. xj 


ELSIE VENNER. 


137 


“ Four hands all round ! ” shouted the first vi- 
olin, — and Mr. Bernard found himself seized and 
whirled in a circle out of which he could not es 
cape, and then forced to “ cross over,’^ and then 
to “ dozy do,” as the maestro had it, — and when, 
on getting back to his place, he looked for Elsie 
Venner, she was gone. 

The dancing went on briskly. Some of the 
old folks looked on, others conversed in groups 
and pairs, and so the evening wore along, until a 
little after ten o^clock. About this time there 
was noticed an increased bustle in the passages, 
with a considerable opening and shutting of 
doors. Presently it began to be whispered about 
that they were going to have supper. Many, 
who had never been to any large party before, 
held their breath for a moment at this announce- 
ment. It was rather with a tremulous interest 
than with open hilarity that the rumor was gen- 
erally received. 

One point the Colonel had entirely forgotten 
to settle. It was a point involving not merely 
propriety, but perhaps principle also, or at least 
the good report of the house, — and he had never 
thought to aiTange it. He took Judge Thornton 
aside and whispered the important question to 
him, — in his distress of mind, mistaking pockets 
and taking out his bandanna instead of his white 
handkerchief to wipe his forehead. 

“ Judge,” he said, “ do you think, that, before 
ve commence refreshing ourselves at the tablesi 


138 


ELSIE VENDER. 


tt would be the proper thing to — crave a — to 
request Deacon Soper or some other elderly per- 
son — to ask a blessing ? ” 

The Judge looked as grave as if he were about 
giving the opinion of the Court in the great In 
dia-rubber case. 

“ On the whole,” he answered, after a pause, 
“ I should think it might, perhaps, be dispensed 
with on this occasion. Young folks are noisy, 
and it is awkward to have talking and laughing 
going on while a blessing is being asked. Un- 
less a clergyman is present and makes a point 
of it, I think it will hardly be expected.” 

The Colonel was infinitely relieved. ‘‘ Judge, 
will you take Mrs. Sprowle in to supper ? ” And 
the Colonel returned the compliment by offering 
his arm to Mrs. Judge Thornton. 

The door of the supper-room was now open, 
and the company, following the lead of the host 
and hostess, began to stream into it, until it was 
pretty well filled. 

There was an awful kind of pause. Many 
were beginning to drop their heads and shut 
tlieir eyes, in anticipation of the usual petition 
before a meal ; some expected the music to strilte 
up, — others, that an oration would now be de 
livered by the Colonel. 

“ Make yourselves at home, ladies and gentle- 
men,” said the Colonel ; “ good things were made 
to eat, and you ’re welcome to all you see before 
vou.” 


ELSIE VENNER. 


139 


So saying, he attacked a huge turkey which 
stood at the head of the table ; and his example 
being followed first by the bold, then by the 
doubtful, and lastly by the timid, the clatter soon 
made the circuit of the tables. Some were 
shocked, however, as the Colonel had feared 
they would be, at the want of the customary in- 
vocation. Widow Leech, a kind of relation, 
who had to be invited, and who came with her 
old, back-country-looking string of gold beads 
round her neck, seemed to feel very serious about 
it. 

“ If she’d ha’ known that folks would begrutch 
cravin’ a blessin’ over sech a heap o’ provisions, 
she’d rather ha’ staid t’ home. It was a bad 
sign, when folks wasn’t grateful for the baounties 
of Providence.” 

The elder Miss Spinney, to whom she made 
this remark, assented to it, at the same time 
ogling a piece of frosted cake, which she pres- 
ently appropriated with great refinement of man- 
ner, — taking it between her thumb and fore- 
finger, keeping the others well spread and the 
little finger in extreme divergence, with a grace- 
ful undulation of the neck, and a queer little 
Bound in her throat, as of an m that wanted to 
get out and perished in the attempt. 

The tables now presented an animated spec- 
tacle. Young fellows of the more dashing sort, 
with high stand-up collars and voluminous bows 
to their neckerchiefs, distinguished themselves by 


140 


ELSIE VENNER. 


cutting up fowls and offering portions thereof tc 
the buxom girls these knowing ones had com* 
monly selected. 

“ A bit of the wing, E-oxy, or of the — unde) 
limb ? ” 

The first laugh broke out at this, but it was 
premature, a sporadic laugh, as Dr. Kittredge 
would have said, which did not become epidemic. 
People were very solemn as yet, many of them 
being new to such splendid scenes, and crushed, 
as it were, in the presence of so much crockery 
and so many silver spoons, and such a variety of 
unusual viands and beverages. When the laugh 
rose around Roxy and her saucy beau, several 
looked in that direction with an anxious expres- 
sion, as if something had happened, — a lady 
fainted, for instance, or a couple of lively fellow* 
come to high words. 

“ Young folks will be young folks,” said Dea- 
con Soper. “ No harm done. Least said soon- 
est mended.” 

“ Have some of these shell-oysters ? ” said the 
Colonel to Mrs. Trecothick. 

A delicate emphasis on the word shell implied 
that the Colonel knew what was what. Tj^he 
No w England inland n ative, beyond the reach 
of the east winds, the oyster unconditioned, the 
oyster absolute, without a qualifying adjective, 
is the pickled oyster. Mrs. Trecothiclq who knew 
very well that an oyster long out of his shell (ag 
is apt to be the case with the rural bivalve) geti 


ELSIE VENIJER. 


141 


homesick and loses his sprightliness, replied, with 
the pleasantest smile in the world, that the chick- 
en she had been helped to was too delicate to be 
given up even for the greater rarity. But the 
^ord “ shell-oysters ” had been overheard ; and 
here was a perceptible crowding movement tow- 
ards their newly discovered habitat, a large soup 
tureen. 

Silas Peckham had meantime fallen upon an- 
other locality of these recent rnollusks. He said 
nothing, but helped himself freely, and made a 
sign to Mrs. Peckham. 

“ Lorindy,’’ he whispered, “ shell-oysters ! ” 

And ladled them out to her largely, without 
betraying any emotion, just as if they had been 
the natural inland or pickled article. 

After the more solid portion of the banquet 
had been duly honored, the cakes and sweet 
preparations of various kinds began to get their 
share of attention. There were great cakes and 
little cakes, cakes with raisins in them, cakes with 
currants, and cakes without either; there were 
brown cakes and yellow cakes, frosted cakes, 
glazed cakes, hearts and rounds, and jumbles^ 
which playful youth slip over the forefinger be- 
fore spoiling their annular outline. There were 
inomds of blo'monje^ of the arrowroot variety, — 
that being undistingnishable from such as is 
made with Russia isinglass. There were jel- 
lies, which had been shaking, all the time the 
young folks were dancing in the next room, aa 


142 


ELSIE VENNER. 


if they were balancing to partners. There were 
built-np fabrics, called Charlottes, caky externally, 
pulpy within ; there were also marangs, and like- 
wise custards, — some of the indolent-fluid sort, 
others firm, in which every stroke of the teaspoon 
left a smooth, conchoidal surface like the fracture 
of chalcedony, with here and there a little* eye 
like what one sees in cheeses. Nor was that 
most wonderful object of domestic art called 
trifle wanting, with its charming confusion of 
cream and cake and almonds and jam and jelly 
and wine and cinnamon and froth ; nor yet the 
marvellous floating-island, — name suggestive of 
all that is romantic in the imaginations of youth- 
ful palates. 

“ It must have cost you a sight of work, to say 
nothin’ of money, to get all this beautiful confec- 
tionery made for the party,” said Mrs. Crane to 
Mrs. Sprowle. 

“ Well, it cost some consid’able labor, no 
doubt,” said Mrs. Sprowle. “ Matilda and our 
girls and I made ’most all the cake with our own 
hands, and we all feel some tired ; but if folks get 
what suits ’em, we don’t begrudge the time nor 
the work. But I do feel thirsty,” said the poor 
lady, “ and I think a glass of srub would do my 
throat good; it’s dreadful dry. Mr. Peckham 
would vou be so polite as to pass me a glass 
of srub?” 

Silas Peckham bowed with great alacrity, and 
Ux)k from the table a small glass cup, containing 


3XSIE VENNER 


143 


R fluid reddish in hue and subacid in taste. This 
was srub^ a beverage in local repute, of question- 
able nature, but suspected of owing its tint and 
sharpness to some kind of syrup derived from the 
maroon-colored fruit of the sumac. There were 
similar small cups on the table filled with lemon- 
ade, and here and there a decanter of Madeira 
wine, of the Marsala kind, which some prefer to, 
and many more cannot distinguish from, that 
w^hich comes from the Atlantic island. 

“ Take a glass of wine. Judge,” said the Col- 
onel ; “ here is an article that I rather think ^11 
suit you.” 

The Judge knew something of wines, and 
could tell all the famous old Madeiras from 
each other, — “Eclipse,” “Juno,” the almost fab- 
ulously scarce and precious “ White-top,” and 
the rest. He struck the nativity of the Mediter- 
ranean Madeira before it had fairly moistened 
his lip. 

“ A sound wine. Colonel, and I should think 
of a genuine vintage. Your very good health.’ 

“ Deacon Soper,” said the Colonel, “ here i» 
some Madary Judge Thornton recommends 
Let me fill you a glass of it.” 

The Deacon’s eyes glistened. He was one of 
those consistent Christians who stick firmly by 
the first miracle and Paul’s advice to Timothy. 

“ A little good wine won’t hurt anybody,” 
said the Deacon. “Plenty, — plenty. — plenty 
Tfcerel ” He had not withdrawn his glass, whiU 


144 


ELSIE VENNER. 


the Colonel was pouring, for fear it should spill 
and now it was running over. 

It is very odd how all a man’s philosophy 

and theology are at the mercy of a few drops of 
a fluid which the chemists say consists of nothing 
but C 4, O 2, H 6. The Deacon’s theology fell 
off several points towards latitudinarianism in the 
course of the next ten minutes. He had a deep 
inward sense that everything was as it should be, 
human nature included. The little accidents of 
humanity, known collectively to moralists as sin, 
looked very venial to his growing sense of univer- 
sal brotherhood and benevolence. 

“ It will all come right,” the Deacon said to 
himself, — “ I feel a joyful conviction that every- 
thing is for the best. I am favored with a bless- 
ed peace of mind, and a very precious season of 
good feel ill’ toward my fellow -creturs.” 

A lusty young fellow happened to make a 
quick step backward just at that instant, and 
put his heel, with his weight on top of it, upon 
the Deacon’s toes. 

Aigh I What the d’ d’ didos are y’ abaouf 
with them great huffs o’ yourn?” said the Dea* 
con, with an expression upon his features not ex- 
actly tliat of peace and good-will to men. The 
lusty young fellow apologized ; but the Deacon’s 
face did not come right, and his theology backed 
round several points in the direction of total de- 
pravity. 

Some of the dashing young men in stand -u]^ 


ELSIE VENNER. 


146 


fojlars and extensive neck-ties, encouraged by 
Mr. Geordie, made quite free with the “ Ma- 
dary,” and even induced some of the more styl- 
ish girls — not of the mansion-house set, but of 
the tip-top two-story families — to taste a little. 
Most of these young ladies made faces at it, and 
declared it was “ perfectly horrid,” with that as° 
pect of veracity peculiar to their age and sex. 

About this time a movement was made on 
the part of some of the mansion-house people 
to leave the -supper-table. Miss Jane Treco- 
thick had quietly hinted to her mother that she 
had had enough of it. Miss Arabella Thornton 
had whispered to her father that he had better 
adjourn this court to the next room. There 
were signs of migration, — a loosening of peo- 
ple in their places, — a looking about for arms 
to hitch on to. 

“ Stop ! ” said the Colonel. “ There’s some* 
thing coming yet. Ice-cream ! ” 

The great folks saw that the play was not over 
yet, and that it was only polite to stay and see 
it out. The word “ Ice-Cream ” was no sooner 
whispered than it passed from one to another all 
down the tables. The effect was what might 
have been anticipated. Many of the guests had 
never seen this celebrated product of human skill, 
and to all the two-story population of Rockland 
It was the last expression of the art of pleasing 
and astonishing the human palate. Its appear- 
ance had been deferred for severax reasons : first, 
10 


VOL. I. 


/4b 


ELSIE VENNER. 


because everybody would have attacked it, if i1 
had come in with the other luxuries *, secondly 
because undue apprehensions were entertained 
(owing to want of experience) of its tendency to 
deliquesce and resolve itself with alarming rapid* 
ity into puddles of creamy fluid ; and, thirdly 
because the surprise would make a grand cli- 
max to finish off the banquet. 

There is something so audacious in the con 
ception of ice-cream, that it is not strange that 
a population undebauched by the luxury of great 
cities looks upon it with a kind of awe and 
speaks of it with a certain emotion. This de- 
fiance of the seasons, forcing Nature to do her 
work of congelation in the face of her sultriest 
noon, might well inspire a timid mind with fear 
lest human art were revolting against the Higher 
Powers, and raise the same scruples which re- 
sisted the use of ether and chloroform in certain 
contingencies. Whatever may be the cause, it 
is well known that the announcement at any 
private rural entertainment that there is to be 
ice-cream produces an immediate and profound 
’mpression. It may be remarked, as aiding this 
impression, that exaggerated ideas are enter- 
tained as to the dangerous effects this con- 
gealed food may produce on persons not in the 
most robust health. 

There was silence as the pyramids of ice were 
placed on the table, everybody looking on in ad 
miration. The Colonel took a knife and assailec 


ELSIE VENNER. 


147 


tfie one at the head of the table. When he tried 
to cut off a slice, it didn’t seem to understand it, 
however, and only tipped, as if it wanted to up- 
set. The Colonel attacked it on the other side 
and it tipped just as badly the other way. It 
was awkward for the Colonel. “ Permit me,” 
said the Judge, — and he took the knife and 
struck a sharp slanting stroke which sliced ofl 
a piece just of the right size, and offered it to 
Mrs. Sprowle. This act of dexterity was much 
admired by the company. 

The tables were all alive again. 

“ Lorindy, here’s a plate of ice-cream,” said 
Silas Peckham. 

“ Come, Mahaly,” said a fresh-looking young 
fellow with a saucerful in each hand, “ here’s 
your ice-cream ; — let’s go in the corner and have 
a celebration, us two.” And the old green de- 
laine, with the young curves under it to make it sit 
well, moved off as pleased apparently as if it had 
been silk velvet with thousand-dollar laces over it. 

“ Oh, now. Miss Green ! do you think it’s safe 
to put that cold stuff into your stomick ? ” said 
the Widow Leech to a young married lady, 
who, finding the air rather warm, thought a little 
'ce would cool her down very nicely. “ It’s jest 
like eatin’ snowballs. You don’t look very rug- 
ged ; and I should be dreadful afeard, if I was 
you ” 

“ Carrie,” said old Dr. Kittredge, who had over- 
leat'i this, — how well you’re looking this even* 


14S 


ELSIE VEimER. 


ing ! But you must be tired and heated ; — sil 
down here, and let me give you a good slice of 
ice-cream. How you young folks do grow up, to 
be sure ! I don’t feel quite certain whether it’s 
you or your older sister, but I know it’s somobod 
I call Carrie, and that I’ve known ever since ” — -i 

A sound something between a howl and an 
oath startled the company and broke off the Doc- 
tor’s sentence. Everybody’s eyes turned in the 
direction from which it came. A group instantly 
gathered round the person who had uttered it, 
who was no other than Deacon Soper. 

“ He’s chokin’ ! he’s chokin’ ! ” was the first 
exclamation, — “ slap him on the back ! ” 

Several heavy fists beat such a tattoo on his 
spine that the Deacon felt as if at least one of his 
vertebrse would come up. 

“ He’s black in the face,” said Widow Leech, 

— “ he’s s wallered somethin’ the wrong way. 
Where’s the Doctor ? — let the Doctor get to him, 
can’t ye ? ” 

“ If you will move, my good lady, perhaps I 
can,” said Doctor Kittredge, in a calm tone of 
voice. — “ He’s not choking, my friends,” the 
Doctor added immediately, when he got sight of 
nim. 

“ It’s apoplexy, — I told you so, — don’t you 
flee how red he is in the face ? ” said old Mrs 
Peake, a famous woman for “ nussin ” sick folks 

— determined to be a little ahead of the Doctor. 

‘‘ It’s not apoplexy,” said Dr. Kittredge. 


ELSIE VENNER. 


149 


What is it, Doctor ? what is it ? Will he die ? 
Is he dead? — Here’s his poor wife, the Widow 
Soper that is to be, if she a’n’t a’ready ” 

“ Do be quiet, my good woman,” said Dr. Kit* 
tredge. — “ Nothing serious, I think, Mrs. Soper. — 
Deacon ! ” 

The sudden attack of Deacon Soper had begun 
with the extraordinary sound mentioned above. 
His features had immediately assumed an expres- 
sion of intense pain, his eyes staring wildly, and, 
clapping his hands to his face, he had rocked his 
head backward and forward in speechless agony. 

At the Doctor’s sharp appeal the Deacon lifted 
his head. 

“ It’s all right,” said the Doctor, as soon as he 
saw his face. “ The Deacon had a smart attack 
of neuralgic pain. That’s all. Very severe, but 
not at all dangerous.” 

The Doctor kept his countenance, but his dia- 
phragm was shaking the change in his waistcoat- 
pockets with subterranean laughter. He had 
looked through his spectacles and seen at once 
what had happened. The Deacon, not being in 
yhe habit of taking his nourishment in the con- 
gealed state, had treated the ice-cream as a pud- 
ding of a rare species, and, to make sure of doing 
himself justice in its distribution, had taken a 
large mouthful of it without the least precaution. 
The consequence was a sensation as if a dentist 
were killing the nerves of twcjnty-five teeth at 
^nee with hot irons, or cold ones, which would 
^kUrt rather worse. 


150 


ELSIE VENNEB. 


Tlie Deacon swallowed something with a spas- 
modic effort, and recovered pretty soon and re- 
ceived the congratulations of his friends. There 
were different versions of the expressions he had 
used at the onset of his complaint, — some of the 
reported exclamations involving a breach of pro- 
priety, to say the least, — but it was agreed that 
a man in an attack of neuralgy wasn’t to be 
judged of by the rules that applied to other folks. 

The company soon after this retired from the 
Bupper-room. The mansion-house gentry took 
their leave, and the two-story people soon fol- 
lowed. IVIr. Bernard had staid an hour or two, 
and left soon after he found that Elsie Venner and 
her father had disappeared. As he passed by the 
dormitory of the Institute, he saw a light glim- 
mering from one of its upper rooms, where the 
lady teacher was still waking. His heart ached, 
when he remembered, that, through all these hours 
of gayety, or what was meant for it, the patient 
girl had been at work in her little chamber ; and 
he looked up at the silent stars, as if to see that 
they were watching over her. The planet Mars 
was burning like a red coal ; the northern con- 
stellation was slanting downward about its cen- 
tral point of flame ; and while he looked, a falling 
star slid from the zenith and was lost. 

He reached his chamber and was soon dreaming 
07 er the Event of the Season. 


ELSIE VENNER. 


151 


CHAPTER Vm. 

THE MOENING AFTER. 

Colonel Sprowle’s family arose late the next 
unorning. The fatigues and excitements of the 
evening and the preparation for it were followed 
by a natural collapse, of which somnolence was 
a leading symptom. The sun shone into the 
window at a pretty well opened angle when the 
Colonel first found himself sufficiently awake to 
address his yet slumbering spouse. 

“ Sally!” said the Colonel, in a voice that was 
a little husky, — for he had finished off the even- 
ing with an extra glass or two of Madary,” and 
had a somewhat rusty and headachy sense of re- 
newed existence, on greeting the rather advanced 
^awn, — “ Sally ! ” 

“ Take care o’ them custard-cups ! There they 

o • * ” 

Poor Mrs. Sprowle was fighting the party over 
in her dream ; and as the visionary custard-cups 
c'rashed down through one lobe of her brain into 
another, she gave a start as if an inch of lightning 
from a quart Leyden jar had jumped into one oi 
her knuckles with its sudden and livel;^ poonk ! 


ELSIE VENNEK. 


li)2 

“ Sally!” said the Colonel, — “wake up, wako 
up ! What V y’ dreamin’ abaout ? ” 

Mrs. Sprowle raised herself, by a sort of spasm, 
sur son seant^ as they say in France, — up on end, 
as we have it in New England. She looked first 
to the left, then to the right, then straight before 
her, apparently without seeing anything, and at 
last slowly settled down, with her two eyes, blank 
of any particular meaning, directed upon the 
Colonel. 

“ What time is’t ? ” she said. 

“ Ten o’clock. What ’y’ been dreamin’ abaout ? 
Y’ giv a jump like a hoppergrass. Wake up, 
wake up ! Th’ party’s over, and y’ been asleep 
all the mornin’. The party’s over, I tell ye! 
Wake up ! ” 

“ Over ! ” said Mrs. Sprowle, who began to de- 
fine her position at last, — “ over ! I should think 
’twas time ’twas over! It’s lasted a hundud year 
I’ve been workin’ for that party longer ’n Methu 
selah’s lifetime, sence I been asleep. The pie> 
wouldn’ bake, and the blo’monge wouldn’ set, and 
the ice-cream wouldn’ freeze, and all the folks kep’ 
cornin’ ’n’ cornin’ ’n’ cornin’, — everybody I ever 
knew in all my life, — some of ’em ’s been dead 
this twenty year ’n’ more, — ’n’ nothin’ for ’em to 
cat nor drink. The fire wouldn’ burn to cook 
anything, all we could do. We blowed with the 
belluses, ’n’ we stuffed in paper ’n’ pitch-pine kin- 
dlin’s, but nothin’ could make that fire burn ; ’n 
all the time the folks kep’ cornin’, as if they’d 


ELSIE VENNER. 


153 


never stop, — nothin’ for ’em but empty dishes, 
'n’ all the borrowed chaney slippin’ round on the 
waiters ’n’ chippin’ ’n’ crackin’, — I wouldn’ go 
through what I been through t’-night for all th’ 
money in th’ Bank, — I do believe it’s harder t’ 
have a party than t’ ” 

Mrs. Sprowle stated the case strongly. 

The Colonel said he didn’t know how that 
might be. She was a better judge than he was. 
It was bother enough, anyhow, and he was glad 
that it was over. After this, the worthy pair com- 
menced preparations for rejoining the waking 
world, and in due time proceeded down-stairs. 

Everybody was late that morning, and nothing 
had got put to rights. The house looked as if a 
small army had been quartered in it over night. 
The tables were of course in huge disorder, after 
the protracted assault they had undergone. There 
had been a great battle evidently, and it had gone 
against the provisions. Some points had been 
stormed, and all their defences annihilated, but 
here and there were centres of resistance which 
had held out against all attacks, — large rounds 
of beef, and solid loaves of cake, against which 
the inexperienced had wasted their energies in 
the enthusiasm of youth or uninformed maturity 
while the longer-headed guests were making dis- 
coveries of ‘‘ shell-oysters ” and “ patridges ” and 
similar delicacies. 

The breakfast was naturahy of a somewhat 
hagmentary character. A chicken that had lost 


154 


ELSIE VENNER 


his ^egs in the service of the preceding campaign 
was once more put on duty. A great ham stucK 
with cloves, as Saint Sebastian was with arrows, 
was again offered for martyrdom. It would have 
been a pleasant sight for a medical man of a 
speculative turn to have seen the prospect before 
the Colonel’s family of the next week’s breakfasts, 
dinners, and suppers. The trail that one of these 
great rural parties leaves after it is one of its most 
formidable considerations. Every door-handle in 
the house is suggestive of sweetmeats for the 
next week, at least. The most unnatural articles 
of diet displace the frugal but nutritious food of 
unconvulsed periods of existence. If there is a 
walking infant about the house, it will certainly 
have a more or less fatal fit from overmuch of 
some indigestible delicacy. Before the week is 
out, everybody will be tired to death of sugary 
forms of nourishment and long to see the last of 
the remnants of the festival. 

The family had not yet arrived at this condi- 
tion. On the contrary, the first inspection of the 
tables suggested the prospect of days of unstinted 
luxury ; and the younger portion of the house- 
hold, especially, were in a state of great excite- 
ment as the account of stock was taken with 
reference to future internal investments. Some 
curious facts came to light during these re- 
Rearches. 

“ Where’s all the oranges gone to ? ” said Mrs 
Sprowle. “ I expected there’d be ever so manj 


ELSIE VENNER. 


155 


df ’em left. I didn’t see many of the folks eat* 
in’ oranges. Where’s the skins of ’em? There 
ought to be six dozen orange-skins round on the 
plates, and there a’n’t one dozen. And all the 
small cakes, too, and all the sugar things that was 
stuck on the big cakes. Has anybody counted 
the spoons ? Some of ’em got swallered, perhaps. 
I hope they was plated ones, if they did ! ” 

The failure of the morning’s orange-crop and 
the deficit in other expected residual delicacies 
were not very difficult to account for. In many 
of the two-story Rockland families, and in those 
favored households of the neighboring villages 
whose members had been invited to the great 
party, there was a very general excitement among 
the younger people on the morning after the great 
event. “Did y’ bring home somethin’ from the 
party ? What is it ? What is it ? Is it frut- 
cake ? Is it nuts and oranges and apples ? Give 
me some ! Give me some ! ” Such a concert of 
treble voices uttering accents like these had not 
been heard since the great Temperance Festival 
with the celebrated “ eolation ” in the open air 
under the trees of the Parnassian Grove, — as the 
place was christened by the young ladies of the 
Institute. The cry of the children was not in 
fain. From the pockets Df demure fathers, from 
ihe bags of sharp-eyed spinsters, from the folded 
handkercjiiefs of light-fingered sisters, from the 
tall hats of sly-winking brothers, there was a 
»e8urrection of the missing oranges and cakes and 


156 


ELSIE VENNEK. 


Bugar-tliings in many a rejoicing family-circle, 
enough to astonish the most hardened “ caterer ” 
that ever contracted to feed a thousand people 
under canvas. 

The tender recollection of those dear little onet 
whom extreme youth or other pressing considera* 
tions detain from scenes of festivity — a trait of 
affection by no means uncommon among our 
thoughtful people — dignifies those social meet- 
ings where it is manifested, and sheds a ray of 
sunshine on our common nature. It is “ an oasis 
in the desert,” — to use the striking expression of 
the last year’s “ Valedictorian ” of the Apollinean 
Listitute. In the midst of so much that is purely 
selfish, it is delightful to meet such disinterested 
cars for others. When a large family of children 
are expecting a parent’s return from an entertain- 
ment, it will often require great exertions on his 
part to freight himself so as to meet their reasona- 
ble expectations. A few rules are worth remem- 
bering by all who attend anniversary dinners in 
Faneuil Hall or elsewhere. Thus : Lobsters 
claws are always acceptable to children of al 
ages. Oranges and apples are to be taken on, 
at a tivie^ until the coat-pockets begin to become 
inconveniently heavy. Cakes are injured by sit- 
ting upon them ; it is, therefore, well to carry a 
stout tin box of a size to hold as many pieces as 
there are children in the domestic circle. A very 
pleasant amusement, at the close of one of these 
banquets, is grabbing for the flowers with whicli 


ELSIE VENiSrER. 


157 


the table is embellished. These will please the 
ladies at home very greatly, and, if the children 
are at the same time abundantly supplied with 
fruits, nuts, cakes, and any little ornamental arli- 
cles of confectionery which are of a nature to be 
unostentatiously removed, the kind-hearted parent 
will make a whole household happy, without 
any additional expense beyond the outlay for his 
ticket. 

There were fragmentary delicacies enough left, 
of one kind and another, at any rate, to make all 
The ColonePs family uncomfortable for the next 
week. It bid fair to take as long to get rid of the 
remains of the great party as it had taken to make 
ready for it. 

In the mean time Mr. Bernard had been dream- 
ing, as young men dream, of gliding shapes with 
bright eyes and burning cheeks, strangely blended 
with red planets and hissing meteors, and, shining 
over all, the white, unwandering star of the North, 
girt with its tethered constellations. 

After breakfast he walked into the parlor, where 
he found Miss Barley. She was alone, and, hold'* 
ing a school-book in her hand, was at work with 
one of the morning’s lessons. She hardly noticed 
him as he entered, being very busy with her book, 
— - and he paused a moment before speaking, and 
looked at her with a kind of reverence. It would 
not have been strictly true to call her beautiful 
For years, — since hei earliest womanhood, — 
those slender hands had taken the bread which 


158 


ELSIE VENNER. 


repaid the toil of heart and brain from the coarse 
palms which offered it in the world’s rude market 
It was not for herself alone that she had bartered 
away the life of her youth, that she had breathed 
the hot air of school-rooms, that she had forced 
her intelligence to posture before her will, as th 
exigencies of her place required, — waking tc 
mental labor, — sleeping to dream of problems,— 
rolling up the stone of education for an endless 
twelvemonth’s term, to find it at the bottom of 
the hill again when another year called her to its 
renewed duties, — schooling her temper in unend- 
ing inward and outward conflicts, until neither 
dulness nor obstinacy nor ingratitude nor inso- 
lence could reach her serene self-possession. Not 
for herself alone. Poorly as her prodigal labors 
were repaid in proportion to the waste of life 
they cost, her value was too well established to 
leave her without what, under other circumstances, 
would have been a more than sufficient compensa- 
tion. But there were others who looked to her in 
their need, and so the modest fountain which 
might have been filled to its brim was continually 
drained through silent-flowing, hidden sluices. 

Out of such a life, inherited from a race which 
nad lived in conditions not unlike her own, beauty^ 
in the common sense of the term, could hardly 
find leisure to develop and shape itself. For it 
must be remembered, that symmetry and elegance 
of features and figure, like perfectly formed crya* 
tals in the mineral world, are reached only by ia 


ELSIE VENNER. 


Buring a certain necessary repose to individuals 
and to generations. Human beauty is an agri- 
cultural product in the country, growing up in 
men and women as in corn and cattle, where the 
soil is good. It is a luxury almost monopolized 
by the rich in cities, bred under glass like their 
forced pine-apples and peaches. Both in city and 
country, the evolution of the physical harmonies 
which make music to our eyes requires a combi- 
nation of favorable circumstances, of which alter- 
nations of unburdened tranquillity with, intervals 
of varied excitement of mind and body are among 
the most important. Where sufficient excitement 
is wanting, as often happens in the country, the 
features, however rich in red and white, get heavy, 
and the movements sluggish ; where excitement 
is furnished in excess, as is frequently the case in 
cities, the contours and colors are impoverished, 
and the nerves begin to make their existence 
known to the consciousness, as the face very soon 
Informs us. 

Helen Harley could not, in the nature of things, 
have possessed the kind of beauty which pleases 
the common taste. Her eye was calm, sad-look- 
.ng, her features very still, except when her pleas- 
ant smile changed them for a moment, all her 
outlines were delicate, ner voice was very gentle, 
but somewhat subdued by years of thoughtful 
abor, and on her smooth forehead one little 
ainted line whispered alreadv that Care was be- 
ginning to mark the trace which Time sooner or 


ELSIE VEKNER. 


later would make a furrow. She could iiot be a 
beauty ; if she had been, it would have been 
much harder for many persons to be interested in 
her. For, although in the abstract we all love 
beauty, and although, if we were sent naked 
souls into some ultramundane warehouse of soul- 
less bodies and told to select one to our liking, we 
should each choose a handsome one, and never 
think of the consequences, — it is quite certain 
that beauty carries an atmosphere of repulsion as 
well as of attraction with it, alike in both sexes. 
We may be well assured that there are many per- 
sons who no more think of specializing their love 
of the other sex upon one endowed with signal 
beauty, than they think of wanting great dia- 
monds or thousand-dollar horses. No man or 
woman can appropriate beauty without paying 
for it, — in endowments, in fortune, in position, 
in self-surrender, or other valuable stock ; and 
there are a great many who are too poor, too 
ordinary, too humble, too busy, too proud, to pay 
any of these prices for it. So the unbeautiful 
get many more lovers than the beauties ; only, as 
there are more of them, their lovers are spread 
thinner and do not make so much show. 

The young master stood looking at Helen Dar- 
ey with a kind of tender admiration. She was 
each a picture of the martyr by the slow social 
vombustive process, that it almost seemed to him 
he could see a pale lambent nimbus round hei 
head. 


ELSIE VEilNER. 


161 


“ I did not see you at the great party last even- 
big,” he said, presently. 

She looked up and answered, “ No. I have 
not much taste for such large companies. Be- 
sides, I do not feel as if my time belonged to me 
after it has been paid for. There is always some- 
thing to do, some lesson or exercise, — and it so 
happened, I was very busy last night with the 
new problems in geometry. I hope you had a 
good time.” 

“ Very. Two or three of our girls were there. 
Rosa Milburn. What a beauty she is! I won- 
der what she feeds on ! Wine and musk and 
chloroform and coals of fire, I believe ; I didn’t 
think there was such color and flavor in a woman 
outside the tropics.” 

Miss Barley smiled rather faintly; the imagery 
was not just to her taste : femineity often finds it 
very hard to accept the fact of muliebrity* 

u Was ” ? 

She stopped short ; but her question had asked 
itself. 

Elsie there ? She was, for an hour or so. 
She looked frightfully handsome. I meant to 
nave spoken to her, but she slipped away before 1 
knew it.” SE' 

“ I thought she meant to go to the party,” said 
Miss Barley. “ Bid she look at you ? ” 

“ She did. Why ? ” 

And you did not speak to her? ” 

“ No. J should have spoken to her, but sho 
11 


you I. 


162 


ELSIE VENNER. 


was gone when I looked for her. A strange creat- 
ure ! Isn’t there an odd sort of fascination about 
her ? You have not explained all the m) itcry 
about the girl. What does she come to this 
school for 1 She seems to do pretty much as she 
likes about studying.” 

Miss Darley answered in very low tones. “ It 
was a fancy of hers to come, and they let her 
have her way. I don’t know what there is about 
her, except that she seems to take my life out of 
me when she looks at me. I don’t like to ask 
other people about our girls. She says very little 
to anybody, and studies, or makes believe to study, 
almost what she likes. I don’t know what she 
is,” (Miss Darley laid her hand, trembling, on the 
young master’s sleeve,) “ but I can tell when she 
is in the room without seeing or hearing her. Oh, 
Mr. Langdon, I am weak and nervous, and no 
doubt foolish, — but — if there were women now, 
as in the days of our Saviour, possessed of devils, 
I should think there was something not human 
looking out of Elsie Venner’s eyes!” 

The poor girl’s breast rose and fell tumultuously 
as she spoke, and her voice labored, as if some 
obstruction were rising in her throat. 

A scene might possibly have come of it, but the 
door opened. Mr. Silas Peckham. Miss Darley 
got away as soon as she well could. 

“ Why did not Miss Darley go to the party las< 
evening ? ” said Mr. Bernard. 

“ Well, the fact isj” answered Mr. Silas Peck 


ELSIE VENITER. 


163 


ham, ‘ Miss Darley, she ’s pooty much took up 
with the school. She’s an industris young wom- 
an, — yis, she is industris, — but perhaps she a’n’t 
quite so spry a worker as some. Maybe, consid- 
erin’ she’s paid for her time, she isn’t fur out o’ 
the way in occoopyin’ herself evenin’s, — that is, 
if so be she a’n’t smart enough to finish up all her 
work in the daytime. Edoocation is the great busi- 
ness of the Institoot. Amoosements are objec’s 
of a secondary natur’, accordin’ to my v’oo.” 
[The unspellable pronunciation of this word is 
the touchstone of New England Brahminism.] 
Mr. Bernard drew a deep breath, his thin nos- 
trils dilating, as if the air did not rush in fast 
enough to cool his blood, while Silas Peckham 
was speaking. The Head of the Apollinean In- 
stitute delivered himself of these judicious senti- 
ments in that peculiar acid, penetrating tone, 
thickened with a nasal twang, which not rarely 
becomes hereditary after three or four generations 
raised upon east winds, salt fish, and large, white- 
bellied, pickled cucumbers. He spoke deliberate- 
ly, as if weighing his words well, so that, during 
his few remarks, Mr. Bernard had time for a men- 
tal accompaniment with variations, accented by 
certain bodily changes, which escaped Mr. Peck- 
ham’s observation. First there was a feeling of 
disgust and shame at hearing Helen Darley 
fpoken of like a dumo working animal. That 
bent the blood up into his cheeks. Then the slui 
upon her probable want of force — her incapacity 


164 


ELSIE VEl^NER. 


who made the character of the school and lell 
this man to pocket its profits — sent a thrill of 
the old Wentworth fire through him, so that hia 
muscles hardened, his hands closed, and he took 
the measure of Mr. Silas Peckham, to see if hio 
head would strike the wall in case he went ovex 
backwards all of a sudden. This would not d ■), 
of course, and so the thrill passed off and the 
muscles softened again. Then came that stato 
of tenderness in the heart, overlying wrath in thr 
stomach, in which the eyes grow moist like a 
woman’s, and there is also a great boiling-up of 
objectionable terms out of the deep-water vocabu- 
lary, so that Prudence and Propriety and all the 
other pious Ps have to jump upon the lid of 
speech to keep them from boiling oxier into fierce 
articulation. All this was internal, chiefly, and 
of course not recognized by Mr. Silas Peckham. 
The idea, that any full-grown, sensible man 
should have any other notion than that of getting 
the most work for the least money out of his as- 
sistants, had never suggested itself to him. 

Mr. Bernard had gone through this paroxysm, 
and cooled down, in the period while Mr. Peck- 
ham was uttering these words in his thin, shal- 
low whine, twanging up into the frontal sinuses, 
What was the use of losing his temper and 
throwing away his place, and so, among the com 
sequences which would necessarily follow, leav 
iiig the poor lady-teacher without a friend tc 
stand by her ready to lay his hand on the grand 


ELSIE VENNER. 


165 


inquisitor before the windlass of his rack had 
taken one turn too many ? 

“ No doubt, Mr. Peckham,” he said, in a grave, 
calm voice, “ there is a great deal of work to be 
done in the school ; but perhaps we can distrib- 
ute tiie duties a little more evenly after a time. 
I shall look over the girls’ themes myself, after 
this week. Perhaps there will be some other 
parts of her labor that I can take on myself. 
We can arrange a new programme of studies 
and recitations.” 

“ We can do that,” said Mr. Silas Peckham. 
** But I don’t propose mater’lly alterin’ Miss Bar- 
ley’s dooties. I don’t think she works to hurt 
herself. Some of the Trustees have proposed 
interdoosin’ new branches of study, and I expect 
you will be pooty much occoopied with the doo- 
ties that belong to your place. On the Sahbath 
you will be able to attend divine service three 
times, which is expected of our teachers. I shall 
continoo myself to give Sahbath Scriptur’-read- 
in’s to the young ladies. That is a solemn dooty 
I can’t make up my mind to commit to other 
people. My teachers enjoy the Lord’s day as a 
day of rest. In it they do no manner of work, — 
except in cases of necessity or mercy, such as 
linin’ out diplomas, or when we git crowded jest 
at the end of a term, or when there is an extry 
number of p’lopils, or other Providential call to 
dispense with the ordinance.” 

Mr. Bernard had a fine glow in his cheeks by 


166 


ELSIE VENNER. 


this time, — doubtless kindled by the though' ol 
the kind consideration Mr. Peckham showed fo: 
his subordinates in allowing them the between* 
meeting-time on Sundays except for some specia. 
reason. But the morning was wearing away ; 
BO he went to the school-room, taking leave very 
properly of his respected principal, who soon tpoh 
his hat and departed. 

Mr. Peckham visited certain “ stores or shops, 
where he made inquiries after various articles in 
the provision-line, and effected a purchase or two. 
Two or three barrels of potatoes, which had 
sprouted in a promising way, he secured at a 
bargain. A side of feminine beef was also ob- 
tained at a low figure. He was entirely satisfied 
with a couple of barrels of flour, which, being in- 
voiced “ slightly damaged,” were to be had at a 
reasonable price. 

After this, Silas Peckham felt in good spirits. 
He had done a pretty stroke of business. It 
came into his head whether he might not follow 
it up with a still more brilliant speculation. So 
he turned his steps in the direction of Colonel 
Sprowle’s. 

It was now eleven o’clock, and the battle-field 
of last evening was as we left it. Mr. Peckham’s 
visit was unexpected, perhaps not very well timed, 
but the Colonel received him civilly. 

“ Beautifully lighted, — these rooms last night! 
said Mr. Peckham. “ Winter-strained ? ” 

The C*olonel nodded. 


ELSIE VENNER. 


167 


“ How much do you pay for your winter* 
I trained ? ’’ 

The Colonel told him the price. 

“ Very hahnsome supper, — very hahnsome . 
Nothin^ ever seen like it in Rockland. Must 
have been a great heap of things left over.” 

The compliment was not ungrateful, and the 
Colonel acknowledged it by smiling and saying, 
“ I should think the’ was a trifle I Come and 
look.” 

When Silas Peckham saw how many delica- 
cies had survived the evening’s conflict, his com- 
mercial spirit rose at once to the point of a 
proposal. 

“ Colonel Sprowle,” said he, “ there’s meat and 
cakes and pies and pickles enough on that table 
to spread a hahnsome eolation. If you’d like to 
trade reasonable, I think perhaps I should be 
willin’ to take ’em off your hands. There’s been 
a talk about our havin’ a celebration in the Par- 
nassian Grove, and 1 think I could work in what 
your folks don’t want and make myself whole by 
chargin’ a small sum for tickets. Broken meats, 
^f course, a’n’t of the same valoo as fresh pro- 
visions ; so I think you might be willin’ to trade 
i iasonable.” 

Mr. Peckham paused and rested on his propo- 
sal. It would not, perhaps, have been very ex- 
traordinary, if Colone. Sprowle had entertained 
the proposition. There is no telling beforehand 
how such things will strike people. It didn’t 


168 


ELSIE VENNER. 


happen to strike the Colonel favorably. He haa 
a little red-blooded manhood in him. 

“ Sell you them things to make a eolation out 
of?” the Colonel replied. “Walk up to that 
table, Mr. Peckham, and help yourself! Fill 
your pockets, Mr. Peckham 1 Fetch a basket^ 
and our hired folks shall fill it full for ye ! Send a 
eart, if y’ like, ’n’ carry off them leavin’s to make 
a celebration for your pupils with ! Only let me 
tell ye this : — as sure’s my name’s Hezekiah 
Spraowle, you’ll be known through the taown 
n’ through the caounty, from that day forrard, as 
the Principal of the Broken- Victuals Institoot ! ” 

Even provincial human-nature sometimes has 
a touch of sublimity about it. Mr. Silas Peck- 
ham had gone a little deeper than he meant, and 
come upon the “ hard pan,” as the well-diggers 
call it, of the Colonel’s character, before he thought 
of it. A militia-colonel standing on his senti- 
ments is not to be despised. That was shown 
pretty well in New England tw^o or three gen- 
erations ago. There were a good many plain offi- 
cers that talked about their “ rigimsnt ” and their 
“ caounty ” who knew very well how to say 
“ Make ready ' ” “ Take aim ! ” “ Fire ! ” — in 
the face of a line of grenadiers with bullets in 
their guns and bayonets on them. And though 
a rustic uniform is not always unexceptionable 
in its cut and trimmings, yet there was many an 
ill-made coat in those old times that was gooc 
enough to be shown to the enemy’s front rank 


ELSIE VENNEK 


169 


too often to be left on the field with a round hole 
in its left lapel that matched another going right 
through the brave heart of the plain country cap 
tain or major or colonel who was buried in it 
under the crimson turf. 

Mr, Silas Peckham said little or nothing. Hia 
sensibilities were not acute, but he perceived that 
he had made a miscalculation. He hoped that 
there was no offence, — thought it might have 
been mutooally agreeable, conclooded he would 
give up the idee of a eolation, and backed him- 
self out as if unwilling to expose the less guarded 
aspect of his person to the risk of accelerating 
impulses. 

The Colonel shut the door, — cast his eye on 
the toe of his right boot, as if it had had a strong 
temptation, — looked at his watch, then round 
the room, and, going to a cupboard, swallowed a 
glass of deep-red brandy and water to compose 
bis feelings. 


170 


ELSIE VENNEB. 


CHAPTER IX. 

THE DOCTOR ORDERS THE BEST SULKY. 

(With a Digression on Hired Help”') 

“ Abel ! Slip Cassia into the new sulky, and 
fetch her round.’’ 

Abel was Dr. Kittredge’s hired man. He was 
born in New Hampshire, a queer sort of State, 
with fat streaks of soil and population where 
they breed giants in mind and body, and lean 
streaks which export imperfectly nourished young 
men with promising but neglected appetites, who 
may be found in great numbers in all the large 
towns, or could be until of late years, when they 
have been half driven out of their favorite base- 
ment-stories by foreigners, and half coaxed away 
from them by California. New Hampshire is in 
more than one sense the Switzerland of New 
England. The “ Granite State ” being naturally 
enough deficient in pudding-stone, its children are 
apt to wander southward in search of that de- 
posit, — in the unpetrified condition. 

Abel Stebbins was a good specimen of that 
extraordinary hybrid or mule between demoo» 


ELSIE VENNER. 


171 


racy and chrysocracy, a native-born New-England 
Berving-man, The Old World has nothing at all 
like him. He is at once an emperor and a sub- 
ordinate. In one hand he holds one five-millionth 
part (be the same more or less) of the power that 
sways the destinies of the Great Republic. His 
other hand is in your boot, which he is about to 
polish. It is impossible to turn a fellow-citizen 
whose vote may make his master — say, rather, 
employer — Governor or President, or who may 
be one or both himself, into a flunky. That 
article must be imported ready-made from other 
centres of civilization. When a New Englander 
has lost his self-respect as a citizen and as a man, 
he is demoralized, and cannot be trusted with the 
money to pay for a dinner. 

It may be supposed, therefore, that this frac- 
tional emperor, this continent-shaper, finds his 
position awkward when he goes into service, and 
that his employer is apt to find it still more em- 
barrassing. It is always under protest that the 
hired man does his duty. Every act of service is 
subject to the drawback, “ I am as good as you 
are.” This is so common, at least, as almost to 
be the rule, and partly accounts for the rapid dis- 
appearance of the indigenous “ domestic ” from 
the basements above mentioned. Paleontologists 
will by-and-by be examining the floors of our 
uitchens for tracks of the extinct native spe- 
cies of serving-man. The female of the same 
race is fast dying out ; indeed, the time is not far 


172 


ELSIE VENNER. 


distant when all the varieties of young woman 
will have vanished from New England, as the 
dodo has perished in the Mauritius The young 
lady is all that we shall have left, and the mop 
and duster of the last Almira or Loizy will be 
stared at by generations of Bridgets and Noras 
as that famous head and foot of the lost bird are 
stared at in the Ashmolean Museum. 

Abel Stebbins, the Doctor’s man, took the true 
American view of his difficult position. He sold 
his time to the Doctor, and, having sold it, he took 
care to fulfil his half of the bargain. The Doctor, 
on his part, treated him, not like a gentleman, 
because one does not order a gentleman to bring 
up his horse or run his errands, but he treated him 
like a man. Every order was given in courteous 
terms. His reasonable privileges were respected 
as much as if they had been guaranteed under 
hand and seal. The Doctor lent him books from 
his own library, and gave him all friendly coun 
sel, as if he were a son or a younger brother. 

Abel had Revolutionary blood in his veins, and 
though he saw fit to “ hire out,” he could never 
stand the word “ servant,” or consider himself the 
inferior one of the two high contracting parties. 
When he came to live with the Doctor, he made 
up his mind he would dismiss the old gentleman, 
if he did not behave according to his notions of 
propriety. But he soon found that the Doctoi 
Was one of the right sort, and so determined ta 
keep him. The Doctor soon found, on his side 


ELSIE A^ENNER. 


178 


that he had a trustworthy, intelligent fellow, who 
would be invaluable to him, if he only let him 
have his own way of doing what was to be done. 

The Doctor’s hired man had not the manners 
of a French valet. He was grave and taciturn 
or the most part, he never bowed and rarely 
smiled, but was always at work in the daytime 
and always reading in the evening. He was hos- 
tler, and did all the housework that a man could 
properly do, would go to the door or “ tend table,” 
bought the provisions for the family, — in short, 
did almost everything for them but get their cloth- 
ing. There was no office in a perfectly appointed 
household, from that of steward down to that of 
stable-boy, which he did not cheerfully assume. 
His round of work not consuming all his energies, 
he must needs cultivate the Doctor’s garden, which 
he kept in one perpetual bloom, from the blowing 
of the first crocus to the fading of the last dahlia. 

This garden was Abel’s poem. Its half-dozen 
beds were so many cantos. Nature crowded them 
for him with imagery such as no Laureate could 
copy in the cold mosaic of language. The rhythm 
j»f alternating dawn and sunset, the strophe and 
antistrophe still perceptible through all the sudden 
shifts of our dithyrambic seasons and echoed in 
G-orresponding floral harmonies, made melody in 
the soul of Abel, the plain serving-man. It soft- 
ened his v/hole otherwise rigid aspect. He wor- 
shipped God according to the strict way of his 
fathers ; but a florist s Puritanism is always col- 


174 


ELSIE VENDER. 


Died by the petals of his flowers . — and Nat are 
never shows him a black corolla. 

He may or may not figure again in this narra* 
tive; but as there must be some who confound 
the New-England hired man^ native-born, with 
the servant of foreign birth, and as there is the 
difference of two continents and two civilizations 
between them, it did not seem fair to let Abel 
bring round the Doctor’s mare and sulky without 
touching his features in half-shadow into out 
background. 

The Doctor’s mare. Cassia, was so called by 
her master from her cinnamon color, cassia being 
one of the professional names for that spice or 
drug. She was of the shade we call sorrel, or, 
as an Englishman would perhaps say, chestnut, 
— a genuine “ Morgan ” mare, with a low fore* 
hand, as is common in this breed, but with strong 
quarters and flat hocks, well ribbed up, with a 
good eye and a pair of lively ears, — a first-rate 
doctor’s beast, — would stand until her harness 
dropped off her back at the door of a tedious 
case, and trot over hill and dale thirty miles in 
three hours, if there was a child in the next coun- 
ty with a bean in its windpipe and the Doctor 
gave her a hint of the fact. Cassia was not large, 
but she had a good deal of action, and was the 
Doctor’s show-horse. There were two other ani- 
mals in his stable ; Quassia or Quashy, the black 
horse, and Caustic, the. old bay, with whom he 
jogged round the village. 


ELSIE VENNER. 


176 


^ A long ride to-day?” said Abel, as he brought 
ap the equipage. 

“Just out of the village, — that’s all. — There’s 
a kink in her mane, — pull it out, will you ? ” 

“ Goin’ to visit some of the great folks,” Abel 
said to himself. “ Wonder who it is.” — Then to 
the Doctor, — “ Anybody get sick at Sprowles’s ? 
They say Deacon Soper had a fit, after eatin’ 
some o’ their frozen victuals.” 

The Doctor smiled. He guessed the Deacon 
would do well enough. He was only going to 
ride over to the Dudley mansion-house. 


176 


ELSIE VENNEB. 


CHAPTER X. 

THE DOCTOR CALLS ON ELSIE VENNER. 

If that primitive physician, Chiron, M. D., ap- 
pears as a Centaur, as we look at him through 
the lapse of thirty centuries, the modern country- 
doctor, if he could be seen about thirty miles off, 
could not be distinguished from a wheel-animal- 
cule. He inhabits a wheel-carriage. He thinks 
of stationary dwellings as Long Tom Coffin did 
of land in general ; a house may be well enough 
for incidental purposes, but for a “ stiddy ” resi- 
dence give him a “ kerridge.” If he is classified 
in the Linnaean scale, he must be set down thus : 
Genus Homo; Species Rotifer infusorius^ — the 
wheel-animal of infusions. 

The Dudley mansion was not a mile from the 
Doctor’s ; but it never occurred to him to think 
of walking to see any of his patients’ families, 
if he had any professional object in his visit. 
Whenever the narrow sulky turned in at a gate, 
the rustic who was digging potatoes, or hoeing 
corn, or swishing through the grass with his scythe, 
in wave-like crescents, or stepping short behind a 
loaded wheelbarrow, or trudging lazily by the side 


ELSIE VENNER. 


177 


of the swinging, loose-throated, short-legged oxen 
rocking along the road as if they had just been 
landed after a three-months’ voyage, — the toiling 
native, whatever he was doing, stopped and looked 
np at the house the Doctor was visiting. 

“ Somebody sick over there t’ Haynes’s. Guess 
th’ old man’s ailin’ ag’in. Winder’s haaf-way 
open in the chamber, — shouldn’ wonder ’f he 
was dead and laid aout. Docterin’ a’n’t no use, 
when y’ see th’ winders open like that. Wahl, 
money a’n’t much to speak of to th’ old man 
naowl He don’ want but tew cents^ — ’n’ old 
Widah Peake, she knows what he wants them 
for ! ” 

Or again, — 

“ Measles raound pooty thick. Briggs’s folks 
buried two children with ’em laas’ week. Th’ 
ol’ Doctor, he’d h’ ker’d ’em through. Struck in 
’n’ p’dooced mo’t’f ’cation, — so they say.” 

This is only meant as a sample of the kind of 
way they used to think or talk, when the narrow 
sulky turned in at the gate of some house where 
there was a visit to be made. 

Oh, that narrow sulky! What hopes, what 
fears, w hat comfort, what anguish, w’^hat despair, 
in the roll of its coming or its parting wheels ! 
In the spring, when the old oeople get the coughs 
which give them a few shakes and their lives drop 
in pieces like the ashes of a burned thread which 
have kept the threadlike shape until they were 
Btirred, — in the hot summer noons, wdien the 
12 


vou L 


178 


ELSIE VENNER. 


strong man comes in from the fields, like the son 
of the Shunamite, crying, “ My head, my head,’* 
— in the dying autumn days, when youth and 
maiden lie fever-stricken in many a household, 
still-faced, dull-eyed, dark-flushed, dry-lipped, low- 
muttering in their daylight dreams, their fingera 
moving singly like those of slumbering harpers, — 
in the dead winter, when the white plague of the 
North has caged its wasted victims, shuddering 
as they think of the frozen soil which must be 
quarried like rock to receive them, if their perpet- 
ual convalescence should happen to be interfered 
with by any untoward accident, — at every sea- 
son, the narrow sulky rolled round freighted with 
unmeasured burdens of joy and woe. 

The Doctor drove along the southern foot of 
The Mountain. The “ Dudley Mansion ” was 
near the eastern edge of this declivity, where 
it rose steepest, with baldest cliff’s and densest 
patches of overhanging wood. It seemed almost 
too steep to climb, but a practised eye could see 
from a distance the zigzag lines of the sheep 
paths which scaled it like miniature Alpine roads 
A few hundred feet up The Mountain’s side was 
a dark deep dell, unwooded, save for a few spin- 
dling, crazy-looking hackmatacks or native larches, 
with pallid green tufts sticking out fantastically 
all over them. It shelved so deeply, that, while 
the hemlock-tassels were swinging on the trees 
around its border, all would be still at its springy 
bottom, save that perhaps a single fern woulc 


ELSIE VENNER. 


179 


wave slowly backward and forward like a sabre 
with a twist as of a feathered oar, — and this 
when not a breath could be felt, and every othc? 
stem and blade were motionless. There was an 
old story of one having perished here in the win^ 
ter of ’86, and his body having been found in the 
spring, — whence its common name of “Dead- 
Man’s Hollow.” Higher up there were huge 
cliffs with chasms, and, it was thought, concealed 
caves, where in old times they said that Tories 
lay hid, — some hinted not without occasional aid 
and comfort from the Dudleys then living in the 
mansion-house. Still higher and farther west lay 
the accursed ledge, — shunned by all, unless it 
were now and then a daring youth, or a wander- 
ing naturalist who ventured to its edge in the 
hope of securing some infantile Crotalus durissusy 
who had not yet cut his poison-teeth. 

Long, long ago, in old Colonial times, the Hon- 
orable Thomas Dudley, Esquire, a man of note 
and name and great resources, allied by descent 
to the family of “ Tom Dudley,” as the earl) 
Governor is sometimes irreverently called by oui 
most venerable, but still youthful antiquary, — 
and to the other public Dudleys, of course, — of 
all of whom he made small account, as being 
himself an English gentleman, with little taste foi 
the splendors of provincial office, — early in the 
-nst century, Thomas Dudley had built this man 
sion. For several generations it had been dwelt 
in by descendants of the same name, but soon 


180 


ELSIE VENNER. 


after the Revolution it passed by marriage into 
the hands of the Venners, by whom it had ever 
since been held and tenanted. 

As the Doctor turned an angle in the road, aU 
at once the stately old house rose before him. I 
was a skilfully managed effect, as it well might 
be, for it was no vulgar English architect who had 
planned the mansion and arranged its position 
and approach. The old house rose before the 
Doctor, crowning a terraced garden, flanked at the 
left by an avenue of tall elms. The flower-beds 
were edged with box, which diffused around it 
that dreamy balsamic odor, full of ante-natal rem- 
iniscences of a lost Paradise, dimly fragrant as 
might be the bdellium of ancient Havilah, the 
land compassed by the river Pison that went out 
of Eden. The garden was somewhat neglected, 
but not in disgrace, — and in the time of tulips 
and hyacinths, of roses, of “ snowballs,” of hon- 
eysuckles, of lilacs, of syringas, it was rich with 
blossoms. 

From the front-windows of the mansion the 
eye reached a far blue mountain-summit, — nc 
rounded heap, such as often shuts in a village 
andscape, but a sharp peak, clean-angled as As 
cutney from the Dartmouth green. A wide gap 
through miles of woods had opened this distant 
view, and showed more, perhaps, than all the la- 
bors of the architect and the landscape-gardenei 
the large style of the early Dudleys. 

The great stone-chimney of the mansion-house 


ELSIE VENNER. 


181 


was the centre from which all ihe artificial feat- 
ures of the scene appeared to flow. The roofs, 
the gables, the dormer-windows, the porches, the 
clustered offices in the rear, all seemed to crowd 
about the great chimney. To this central pillar 
the paths all converged. The single poplar be- 
hind the house, — Nature is jealous of proud 
chimneys, and always loves to put a poplar near 
one, so that it may fling a leaf or two down its 
black throat every autumn, — the one tall poplar 
behind the house seemed to nod and whisper to 
the grave square column, the elms to sway their 
branches towards it. And when the blue smoke 
rose from its summit, it seemed to be wafted 
away to join the azure haze which hung around 
the peak in the far distance, so that both should 
bathe in a common atmosphere. 

Behind the house were clumps of lilacs with a 
century’s growth upon them, and looking more 
like trees than like shrubs. Shaded by a group 
of these was the ancient well, of huge circuit, 
and with a low arch opening out of its wall 
about ten feet below the surface, — whether the 
door of a crypt for the concealment of treasure, 
or of a subterranean passage, or merely of a vaull 
for keeping provisions cool in hot weather, opin- 
ons differed. 

On looking at the house, it was plain that if 
Was built with Old-World notions of strength 
and durability, and, so far as might be, with 
J^ld- World materials. The hinges of the door 


182 


ELSIE VENNER. 


Btretched out like arms, instead of like hands, as 
we make them. The bolts were massive enough 
for a donjon-keep. The small window-panes 
were actually inclosed in the wood of the sashes 
instead of being stuck to them with putty, as in 
our modern windows. The broad staircase was 
of easy ascent, and was guarded by quaintly 
turned and twisted balusters. The ceilings of 
the two rooms of state were moulded with me- 
dallion-portraits and rustic figures, such as may 
have been seen by many readers in the famous 
old Philipse house, — Washington's headquarters, 

— in the town of Yonkers. The fire-places, wor- 
thy of the wide-throated central chimney, were 
bordered by pictured tiles, some of them with 
Scripture stories, some with Watteau-like figures, 

— tall damsels in slim waists and with spread 
enough of skirt for a modern ballroom, with bow- 
ing, reclining, or musical swains of what every- 
body calls the “ conventional ” sort, — that is, the 
Bwain adapted to genteel society rather than to a 
literal sheep-compelling existence. 

The house was furnished, soon after it was com- 
pleted, with many heavy articles made in Lon- 
don from a rare wood just then come into fash- 
on, not so rare now, and commonly known as 
mahogany. Tinfe had turned it very dark, and 
the stately bedsteads and tall cabinets and claw- 
looted chairs and tables were in keeping with the 
sober dignity of the ancient mansion. The ole 

hangings ” were yet preserved in the chambers 


ELSIE TENNER. 


183 


faded, but still showing their rich patterns,—. 
properly entitled to their name, for they were 
literally hung upon fiat wooden frames like trel- 
lis-work, which again were secured to the naked 
partitions. 

There were portraits of different date on the 
walls of the various apartments, old painted 
coats-of-arms, bevel-edged mirrors, and in one 
sleeping-room a glass case of wax-work flowers 
and spangly symbols, with a legend signifying 
that E. M. (supposed to be Elizabeth Mascarene) 
wished not to be “ forgot 

“When I am dead and lay’d in dust 
And all my bones are ” 

Poor E. M. ! Poor everybody that sighs for 
earthly remembrance in a planet with a core of 
fire and a crust of fossils ! 

Such was the Dudley mansion-house, — for it 
kept its ancient name in spite of the change in the 
line of descent. Its spacious apartments looked 
dreary and desolate ; for here Dudley Venner 
and his daughter dwelt by themselves, with such 
sers’ants only as their quiet mode of life required 
Ho almost lived in his library, the western room 
on the ground-floor. Its window looked upon a 
small plat of green, in the midst of which was a 
single grave marked by a plain marble slab. Ex- 
cept this room, and the chamoer where he slept, 
and the servants’ wing, the rest of the house was 
all Elsie’s. She was always a restless, wandering 


184 


ELSIE VENNER. 


child from her early years, and wonld have hei 
little bed moved from one chamber to another, — 
flitting round as the fancy took her. Sometimei 
she would drag a mat and a pillow into one ol 
the great empty rooms, and, wrapping herself in 
a shawl, coil up and go to sleep in a corner 
Nothing frightened her ; the “ haunted ” chamber, 
with the torn hangings that flapped like wings 
when there was air stirring, was one of her far 
vorite retreats. 

She had been a very hard creature to manage. 
Her father could influence, but not govern her 
Old Sophy, born of a slave mother in the house, 
could do more with her than anybody, knowing 
her by long instinctive study. The other servants 
were afraid of her. Her father had sent for gov- 
ernesses, but none of them ever stayed long. She 
made them nervous ; one of them had a strange 
fit of sickness ; not one of them ever came back 
to the house to see her. A young Spanish wom- 
an who taught her dancing succeeded best with 
her, for she had a passion for that exercise, and 
had mastered some of the most difficult dances. 

Long before this period, she had manifested 
some most extraordinary singularities of taste or 
instinct. The extreme sensitiveness of her father 
on this point prevented any allusion to them ; but 
there were stories floating round, some of them 
even getting into the papers, — without her name, 
of course, — ^which were of a kind to excite intense 
euriosity, if not more anxious feelings. This thm^ 


ELSIE VENNER. 


189 


was certain, that at the age of twelve she was 
missed one night, and was found sleeping in the 
open air under a tree, like a wild creature. Very 
often she would wander off by day, always with- 
out a companion, bringing home with her a nestj 
a flower, or even a more questionable trophy of 
her ramble, such as showed that there was no 
place where she was afraid to venture. Once in 
a while she had stayed out over night, in which 
case the alarm was spread, and men went in 
search of her, but never successfully, — so that 
some said she hid herself in trees, and others that 
she had found one of the old Tory caves. 

Some, of course, said she was a crazy girl, and 
ought to be sent to an Asylum. But old Dr. 
Kittredge had shaken his head, and told them to 
bear with her, and let her have her way as much 
as they could, but watch her, as far as possible, 
without making her suspicious of them. He vis- 
ited her now and then, under the pretext of see- 
ing her father on business, or of only making a 
friendly call. 

The Doctor fastened his horse outside the gate, 
and walked up the garden-alley. He stopped 
suddenly with a start. A strange sound had 
jarred upon his ear. It was a sharp prolonged 
•attle, continuous, but rising and falling as if in 
rhythmical cadence. He moved softly towards 
the open window from which the sound seemed 
to proceed. 


186 


£LSi£i 


Elsie was alone in the room, dancing one of 
those wild Moorish fandangos, such as a matador 
hot from the Plaza de Toros of Seville or Madrid 
might love to lie and gaze at. She was a fig- 
ure to look upon in silence. The dancing frenzy 
must have seized upon her while she was dress- 
ing; for she was in her bodice, bare-armed, her 
hair floating unbound far below the waist of hex 
barred or banded skirt. She had caught up hex 
castanets, and rattled them as she danced with a 
kind of passionate fierceness, her lithe body un- 
dulating with flexuous grace, her diamond eyes 
glittering, her round arms wreathing and unwind- 
ing, alive and vibrant to the tips of the slender 
fingers. Some passion seemed to exhaust itself 
in this dancing paroxysm ; for all at once she 
reeled from the middle of the floor, and flung 
herself, as it were in a careless coil, upon a great 
tiger’s-skin which was spread out in one corner 
of the apartment. 

The old Doctor stood motionless, looking at 
her as she lay panting on the tawny, black-lined 
robe of the dead monster, which stretched out 
beneath her, its rude flattened outline recalling 
the Terror of the Jungle as he crouched for his 
fatal spring. In a few moments her head drooped 
upon her arm, and her glittering eyes closed, — 
she was sleeping. He stood looking at hex 
still, steadily, thoughtfully, tenderly. Presently 
be lifted his hand to his forehead, as if recall 
ing siome fading remembrance of other years. 


ILLSrn VENUJEJL 


16 / 


Poor Catalina I ” 

This was all he said. He shook his head,— 
implying that his visit would be in vain to-day, 
—-returned to his sulky, and rode away, as if in* 
a dream. 


FTS’P VEN^B 




CHAPTER XI. 

COUSIN kichard’s visit. 

The Doctor was roused from his reverie by the 
clatter of approaching hoofs. He looked forward 
and saw a young fellow galloping rapidly towards 
him. 

A common New-England rider with his toes 
turned out, his elbows jerking and the daylight 
showing under him at every step, bestriding a 
cantering beast of the plebeian breed, thick at 
every point where he should be thin, and thin at 
every point where he should be thick, is not one 
of those noble objects that bewitch the world. 
The best horsemen outside of the cities are the 
unshod country-boys, who ride “ bare-back,” with 
only a halter round the horse’s neck, digging their 
brown heels into his ribs, and slanting over back- 
wards, but sticking on like leeches, and taking the 
hardest trot as if they loved it. This was a dif- 
ferent sight on which the Doctor was looking 
The streaming mane and tail of the unshorn, 
savage-looking, black horse, the dashing grace 
with which the young fellow in the shadowy som^ 
brero^ and armed with the huge spurs, sat in hi* 


ELSIE VENNER. 


189 


hi gh« peaked saddle, could belong only to the 
mustang of the Pampas and his master. This 
bold rider was a young man whose sudden appari- 
tion in the quiet inland town had reminded some 
of the good people of a bright, curly-haired boy 
they had known some eight or ten years before aB 
little Dick Venner. 

This boy had passed several of his early years 
at the Dudley mansion, the playmate of Elsie, 
being her cousin, two or three years older than 
herself, the son of Captain Richard Venner, a 
South American trader, who, as he changed his 
residence often, was glad to leave the boy in his 
brother’s charge. The Captain’s wife, this boy’s 
mother, was a lady of Buenos Ayres, of Spanish 
descent, and had died while the child was in his 
cradle. These two motherless children were as 
strange a pair as one roof could well cover. Both 
handsome, wild, impetuous, unmanageable, they 
played and fought together like two young leop- 
ards, beautiful, but dangerous, their lawless in- 
stincts showing through all their graceful move- 
ments. 

The boy was little else than a young Gauclio 
when he first came to Rockland ; for he had 
.earned to ride almost as soon as to walk, anf 
could jump on his pony and trip up a runaway 
pig with the holas or noose him with his minia* 
turo lasso at an age when some city-children 
would hardly be trusted out of sight of a nursery- 
maid. It makes men imperious to sit a horse 


190 


ELSIE VENNER. 


no man governs his fellows so well as from 
living throne. And so, from Marcus Aurelius is 
Roman bronze, down to the “ man on horseback ” 
in General Cushing’s prophetic speech, the saddle 
has always been the true seat of empire. The 
absolute tyranny of the human will over a noble 
and powerful beast develops the instinct of per- 
sonal prevalence and dominion ; so that horse- 
subduer and hero were almost synonymous in 
simpler times, and are closely related still. An 
ancestry of wild riders naturally enough be- 
queaths also those other tendencies which we 
see in the Tartars, the Cossacks, and our own 
Indian Centaurs, — and as well, perhaps, in the 
old-fashioned fox-hunting squire as in any of 
these. Sharp alternations of violent action and 
self-indulgent repose ; a hard run, and a long 
revel after it : this is what over-much horse tends 
to animalize a man into. Such antecedents may 
have helped to make little Dick Venner a self- 
willed, capricious boy, and a rough playmate for 
Elsie. 

Elsie was the wilder of the two. Old Sophy, 
who used to watch them with those quick, ani- 
mal-looking eyes of hers, — she was said to be 
the granddaughter of a cannibal chief, and in- 
herited the keen senses belonging to all creatures 
wnich are hunted as game, — Old Sophy, who 
watched them in their play and their quarrels, al- 
ways seemed to be more afraid for the boy than 
the girl. “ Massa Dick ! Massa Dick ! don’ yon 


ELSIE VENJ^ER. 


191 


be too rough wV dat gal ! She scratch you las’ 
week, ’n’ some day she bite you ; ’n’ if she bite you, 
Massa Dick!” Old Sophy nodded her head omi- 
nously, as if she could say a great deal more; 
while, in grateful acknowledgment of her cau- 
tion, Master Dick put his two little fingers in the 
angles of his mouth, and his forefingers on his 
lower eyelids, drawing upon these features until 
his expression reminded her of something she 
vaguely recollected in her infancy, — the face of 
a favorite deity executed in wood by an African 
artist for her grandfather, brought over by her 
mother, and burned when she became a Christian 
These two wild children had much in common. 
They loved to ramble together, to build huts, to 
climb trees for nests, to ride the colts, to dance, to 
race, and to play at boys’ rude games as if both 
were boys. But wherever two natures have a 
great deal in common, the conditions of a first- 
rate quarrel are furnished ready-made. Relations 
are very apt to hate each other just because they 
are too much alike. It is so frightful to be in an 
atmosphere of family idiosyncrasies ; to see all the 
hereditary uncomeliness or infirmity of body, all 
the defects of speech, all the failings of temper, 
intensified by concentration, so that every fault of 
our own finds itself multiplied by reflections, like 
our images in a saloon lined with mirrors ’ Na- 
ture knows what she is about The centrifugal 
principle which grows out of the antipathy of like 
to like is only the repetition in character of the 


192 


ELSIE VENNER. 


nrrangement we see expressed materially in cer- 
tain seed-capsules, which burst and throw the 
seed to all points of the compass. A house is a 
large pod with a human germ or two in each of 
its cells or chambers ; it opens by dehiscence of 
the front-door by-and-by, and projects one of its 
germs to Kansas, another to San Francisco, an- 
other to Chicago, and so on ; and this that Smith 
may not be Smithed to death and Brown may 
not be Browned into a mad-house, but mix in 
with the world again and struggle back to average 
humanity. 

Elsie’s father, whose fault was to indulge her in 
everything, found that it would never do to let 
these children grow up together. They would 
either love each other as they got older, and pair 
like wild creatures, or take some fierce antipathy, 
which might end nobody could tell where. It was 
not safe to try. The boy must be sent away. A 
sharper quarrel than common decided this point. 
Master Dick forgot Old Sophy’s caution, and 
rexed the girl into a paroxysm of wrath, in which 
she sprang at him and bit his arm. Perhaps they 
made too much of it; for they sent for the old 
Doctor, who came at once when he heard what 
had happened. He had a good deal to say about 
the danger there was from the teeth of animals or 
Ouman beings when enraged ; and as he empha- 
sized his remarks by the application of a pencL 
of lunar caustic to each of the marks left by the 
sharp white teeth, they were like to be remem 
bered by at least one of his hearers. 


ELSIE VENNER. 


19S 


So Master Dick went oiT on his travels, which 
ed him into strange places and stranger company. 
Elsie was half pleased and half sorry to have him 
go ; the children had a kind of mingled liking 
and hate for each other, just such as is very com- 
mon among relations. Whether the girl had most 
satisfaction in the plays they shared, or in teasing 
him, or taking her small revenge upon him for 
teasing her, it would have been hard to say. At 
any rate, she was lonely without him. She had 
more fondness for the old black woman than any- 
body ; but Sophy could not follow her far beyond 
her own old rocking-chair. As for her father, she 
had made him afraid of her, not for his sake, but 
for her own. Sometimes she would seem to be 
fond of him, and the parent’s heart would yearn 
within him as she twined her supple arms about 
him ; and then some look she gave him, some 
half-articulated expression, would turn his cheek 
pale and almost make him shiver, and he would 
say kindly, “ Now go, Elsie, dear,” and smile upon 
her as she went, and close and lock the door softly 
after her. Then his forehead would knot and fur* 
row itself, and the drops of anguish stand thiclf 
upon it. He would go to the western window of 
his study and look at the solitary mound with the 
marble siab for its head-stone. After his grief 
had had its way, he would kneel down and pray 
“br his child as one who has no hope save in that 
special grace which can oring the most rebellious 
spirit into sweet subjection. All this, might seenj 

VOL. I 13 


194 


ELSIE VENNER. 


ike weakness in a parent having the charge of 
one sole daughter of his house and heart ; but he 
had tried authority and tenderness by turns so 
long without any good effect, that he had become 
sore perplexed, and, surrounding her with cautious 
watchfulness as he best might, left her in the main 
to her own guidance and the merciful influences 
wldch Heaven might send down to direct her 
footsteps. 

Meantime the boy grew up to youth and early 
manhood through a strange succession of adven- 
tures. He had been at school at Buenos Ayres, 
— had quarrelled with his mother’s relatives, — 
had run off to the Pampas, and lived with the 
Gauchos^ — had made friends with the Indians, 
and ridden with them, it was rumored, in some 
of their savage forays, — had returned and made 
up his quarrel, — had got money by inheritance 
or otherwise, — had troubled the peace of certain 
magistrates, — had found it convenient to leave 
the City of Wholesome Breezes for a time, and 
had galloped off on a fast horse of his, (so it was 
said), with some officers riding after him, who 
took good care (but this was only the popular 
story) not to catch him. A few days after this 
be was taking his ice on the Alameda of Men- 
doza, and a week or two later sailed from Val* 
paraiso for New York, carrying with him the 
horse with which he had scampered over the 
Plains, a trunk or two with his newly purchased 
outfit of clothing and other conveniences, ana 


ELSIE VENNER. 


195 


a belt heavy with gold and with a few Brazilian 
diamonds sewed in it, enough in value to serve 
him for a long journey. 

Dick Venner had seen life enough to wear out 
the earlier sensibilities of adolescence. He was 
tired of worshipping or tyrannizing over the bis- 
tred or umbered beauties of mingled blood amon^ 
whom he had been living. Even that piquant 
exhibition which the Rio de Mendoza presents 
to the amateur of breathing sculpture faded to 
interest him. He was thinking of a far-off vil- 
lage on the other side of the equator, and of the 
wild girl with whom he used to play and quarrel, 
a creature of a different race from these degener- 
ate mongrels. 

“ A game little devil she was, sure enough ! ” 
— and as Dick spoke, he bared his wrist to look 
for the marks she had left on it : two small white 
scars, where the two small sharp upper teeth had 
struck when she flashed at him with her eyes 
sparkling as bright as those glittering stones 
sewed up in the belt he wore. — “ That’s a filly 
worth noosing!” said Dick to himself, as he 
’ooked in admiration at the sign of her spirit 
and passion. “ I wonder if she will bite at 
eighteen as she did at eight ! She shall have 
^ chance to try, at any rate ! ” 

Such was the self-sacrificing disposition with 
«^bich Richard Venner, Esq., a passenger by th 
Condor from Valparaiso, set foot upon his native 
shore, and turned his face in the direction of 


196 


ELSIE VENNER. 


Rockland, The Mountain and the mansion* 
house. He had heard something, from time tc 
time, of his New-England relatives, and knew 
that they were living together as he left them 
And so he heralded himself to “ My dear Uncl^ ’ 
by a letter signed “ Your loving nephew, Richard 
Venner,” in which letter he told a very frank 
story of travel and mercantile adventure, ex- 
pressed much gratitude for the excellent coun- 
sel and example which had helped to form his 
character and preserve him in the midst of 
temptation, inquired affectionately after his un- 
cle’s health, was much interested to know wheth- 
er his lively cousin who used to be his playmate 
had grown up as handsome as she promised to 
be, and announced his intention of paying his 
respects to them both at Rockland. Not long 
after this came the trunks marked R. V. which 
he had sent before him, forerunners of his ad- 
vent : he was not going to wait for a reply or 
an invitation. 

What a sound that is, — the banging down 
of the preliminary trunk, without its claimant 
to give it the life which is borrowed by all per- 
sonal appendages, so long as the owner’s hand 
or eye is on them ! If it announce the coming 
01 one loved and longed for, how we delight to 
look at it, to sit down on it, to caress it in ouj 
fancies, as a lone exile walking out on a windy 
pier yearns towards the merchantman lying along 
side, with the colors of his own native land at he 


ELSIE VEXNER. 


197 


peak, and the name of the port he sailed from 
long ago upon her stern I But if it tell the near 
approach of the undesired, inevitable guest, what 
sound short of the muffled noises made by the 
undertakers as they turn the corners in the dim- 
lighted house, with low shuffle of feet and whig* 
pered cautions, carries such a sense of knocking- 
kneed collapse with it as the thumping down 
in the front entry of the heavy portmanteau, 
rammed with the changes of uncounted coming 
weeks ? 

Whether the R. V. portmanteaus brought one 
or the other of these emotions to the tenants of 
the Dudley mansion, it might not be easy to 
settle. Elsie professed to be pleased with the 
thought of having an adventurous young stran- 
ger, with stories to teU, an inmate of their quiet, 
not to say dull, family. Under almost any other 
circumstances, her father would have been un- 
willing to take a young fellow of whom he knew 
BO little under his roof ; but this was his nephew, 
and anything that seemed like to amuse or please 
Elsie was agreeable to him. He had grown al- 
most desperate, and felt as if any change in the 
current of her life and feelings might save her 
jom some strange paroxysm of dangerous men- 
tal exaltation or sullen perversion of disposition, 
from which some fearful calamity might come 
to herself or others. 

Dick had been several weeks at the Dudley 
mansion. A few days before, he had made a 


198 


ELSIE VENNER. 


Budden dash for the nearest large city, — and 
when the Doctor met him, he was just return 
ing from his visit. 

It had been a curious meeting between the 
two young persons, who had parted so young 
and after such strange relations with each other. 
When Dick first presented himself at the man- 
sion, not one in the house would have known 
him for the boy who had left them all so sud- 
denly years ago. He was so dark, partly from 
his descent, partly from long habits of exposure, 
that Elsie looked almost fair beside him. He 
had something of the family beauty which be- 
longed to his cousin, but his eye had a fierce 
passion in it, very unlike the cold glitter of 
Elsie’s. Like many people of strong and im- 
perious temper, he was soft-voiced and very 
gentle in his address, when he had no special 
reason for being otherwise. He soon found rea- 
sons enough to be as amiable as he could force 
himself to be with his uncle and his cousin, 
Elsie was to his fancy. She had a strange at- 
traction for him, quite unlike anything he had 
ever known in other women. There was some- 
thing, too, in early associations : when those who 
parted as children meet as man and woman, there 
19 always a renewal of that early experience 
which followed the taste of the forbidden fruit 
— a natural blush of consciousness, not without 
'ts charm. 


ELSIE VENNER. 


199 


Nothing could be more becoming than the be- 
havior of “ Richard Venner, Esquire, the guest of 
Dudley Venner, Esquire, at his noble mansion,” 
as he was announced in the Court column of the 
“ Rocldand Weekly Universe,” He was pleased 
to find himself treated with kindness and atten- 
tion as a relative. He made himself very agreea- 
ble by abundant details concerning the religious, 
political, social, commercial, and educational 
progress of the South American cities and 
states. He was himself much interested in 
everything that was going on about the Dudley 
mansion, walked all over it, noticed its valuable 
wood-lots with special approbation, was delighted 
with the grand old house and its furniture, and 
would not be easy until he had seen all the 
family silver and heard its history. In return, 
he had much to tell of his father, now dead, — 
the only one of the Venners, beside themselves, 
in whose fate his uncle was interested. With 
Elsie, he was subdued and almost tender in his 
manner ; with the few visitors whom they saw, 
shy and silent, — perhaps a little watchful, if any 
voung man happened to be among them. 

Young fellows placed on their good behavior 
are apt to get restless and nervous, all ready 
to fly off into some mischief or other. Dick 
Venner had his haff-tamed horse with him to 
work off his suppressed life with. When the 
lavage passion of his young blood came over 
aim, he would fetch out the mustang, screaming 


ELSIE VENNEK. 


too 

and kicking as these amiable beasts are woi it to 
do, strap the Spanish saddle tight to his back, 
vault into it, and, after getting away from the 
village, strike the long spurs into his sides and 
whirl away in a wild gallop, until the black horso 
was flecked with white foam, and the cruel steel 
points were red with his blood. When horse 
and rider were alike tired, he would fling the 
bridle on his neck and saunter homeward, al- 
ways contriving to get to the stable in a quiet 
way, and coming into the house as calm as 
a bishop after a sober trot on his steady-going 
cob. 

After a few weeks of this kind of life, he began 
to want some more fierce excitement. He had 
tried making downright love to Elsie, with no 
great success as yet, in his own opinion. The 
girl was capricious in her treatment of him, some- 
times scowling and repellent, sometimes familiar, 
very often, as she used to be of old, teasing and 
malicious. All this, perhaps, made her more in- 
teresting to a young man who was tired of easy 
conquests. There was a strange fascination in 
her eyes, too, which at times was quite irresisti- 
ble, so that he would feel himself drawn to hei 
by a power which seemed to take away his wil 
for the moment. It may have been nothing but 
ttie common charm of bright eyes ; but he had 
aever before experienced the- same kind of at* 
traction. 

Perhaps she was not so veiy different froit 


ELSIE VENXER. 


what she had been as a child, after alL At anj 
rate, so it seemed to Dick Venner, who, as wap 
said before, had tried making love to her. They 
were sitting alone in the study one day; Elsie 
had round her neck that somewhat peculiar orna- 
ment, the golden torque^ which she had worn to 
the great party. Youth is adventurous and very 
curious about necklaces, brooches, chains, and 
other such adornments, so long as they are worn 
by young persons of the female sex. Dick was 
seized with a great passion for examining this 
curious chain, and, after some preliminary ques- 
tions, was rash enough to lean towards her and 
put out his hand toward the neck that lay in the 
golden coil. She threw her head back, her eyes 
narrowing and her forehead drawing down so 
that Dick thought her head actually flattened 
itself. He started involuntarily ; for she looked 
so like the little girl who had struck him with 
those sharp flashing teeth, that the whole scene 
came back, and he felt the stroke again as if it 
had just been given, and the two white scars 
began to sting as they did after the old Doctor 
had burned them with that stick of gray caustic, 
which looked so like a slate pencil, and felt so 
much like the end of a red-hot poker. 

It took something more than a gallop to set 
nim right after this. The next day he mentioned 
having received a- letter from a mercantile agent 
with whom he had dealings, What his busi 
aess was is, perhaps, none of our business At 


202 


ELSIE VENNER. 


any rate, it required him to go at once to the 
city where his correspondent resided. 

Independently of this “ business ” which jailed 
him, there may have been other motives, such as 
have been hinted at. People who have been 
living for a long time in dreary country-places, 
without any emotion beyond such as are occa- 
sioned by a trivial pleasure or annoyance, often 
get crazy at last for a vital paroxysm of some 
kind or other. In this state they rush to the 
great cities for a plunge into their turbid life- 
baths, with a frantic thirst for every exciting 
pleasure, which makes them the willing and easy 
victims of all those who sell the Devil’s wares 
on commission. The less intelligent and in- 
structed class of unfortunates, who venture with 
their ignorance and their instincts into what is 
sometimes called the “ life ” of great cities, are 
put through a rapid course of instruction which 
entitles them very commonly to a diploma from 
the police court. But they only illustrate the 
working of the same tendency in mankind at 
large which has been occasionally noticed in the 
sons of ministers and other eminently worthy 
people, by many ascribed to that intense con- 
genital hatred for goodness which distinguishes 
human nature from that of the brute, but per- 
haps as readily accounted for by considering it 
as the yawning and stretching of a young sou. 
tramped too long in one moral posture. 

Richard Venner was a young man of remark 


ELSIE VENNER. 


203 


able experience for his years. He ran less risk, 
therefore, in exposing himself to the temptations 
and dangers of a great city than many older men, 
who, seeking the livelier scenes of excitement to 
be found in large towns as a relaxation after the 
monotonous routine of family-life, are too often 
taken advantage of and made the victims of their 
sentiments or their generous confidence in their 
fellow-creatures. Such was not his destiny. There 
was something about him which looked as if he 
would not take bullying kindly. He had also 
the advantage of being acquainted with most of 
those ingenious devices by which the proverbial 
inconstancy of fortune is steadied to something 
more nearly approaching fixed laws, and the dan- 
gerous risks which have so often led young men 
to ruin and suicide are practically reduced to 
somewhat less than nothing. So that Mr. Rich- 
ard Venner worked off his nervous energies with- 
out any troublesome adventure, and was ready 
to return to Rockland in less than a week, with- 
out having lightened the money-belt he wore 
round his body, or tarnished the long glittering 
knife he carried in his boot. 

Dick had sent his trunk to the nearest town 
through which the railroad leading to the city 
passed. He rode off on his black horse and left 
him at the place where he took the cars. On ar- 
riving at the city station, he took a coach and 
diove to one of the great hotels. Thither drove 
tiso a sagacious-looking; middle* aged man, who 


204 


ELSIE VENNER. 


entered his name as “ W. Thompson ” in the book 
at the office immediately after that of “ R. Ven* 
ner.” Mr. “ Thompson ” kept a carelessly ob- 
servant eye upon IVIr. Venner during his stay at 
the hotel, and followed him to the cars when he 
left, looking over his shoulder when he bought 
his ticket at the station, and seeing him fairly 
off without obtruding himself in any offensive 
way upon his attention. Mr. Thompson, known 
in other quarters as Detective Policeman Terry, 
got very little by his trouble. Richard Venner 
did not turn out to be the wife-poisoner, the 
defaulting cashier, the river-pirate, or the great 
counterfeiter. He paid his hotel-bill as a gentle* 
man should always do, if he has the money 
and can spare it. The detective had probabl} 
overrated his own sagacity when he ventured to 
suspect Mr. Venner. He reported to his chief 
that there was a knowing-looking fellow he had 
been round after, but he rather guessed he was 
nothing more than “ one o’ them Southern sports- 
men.” 

The poor fellows at the stable where Dick 
had left his horse had had trouble enough with 
him. One of the ostlers was limping about with 
a lame leg, and another had lost a mouthful of 
his coat, which came very near carrying a piece 
of his shoulder with it. When Mr. Venner came 
back for his beast, he was as wild as if he had 
just been lassoed, screaming, kicking, rolling 
over to get rid of his saddle, — and when hig 


ELSIE VENNER. 


205 


rider was at last mounted, jumping about in a 
way to dislodge any common horseman. To 
all this Dick replied by sticking his long spurs 
deeper and deeper into his flanks, until the crea- 
'^ure found he was mastered, and dashed off as 
f all the thistles of the Pampas were pricking 
him. 

One more gallop, Juan ! This was in the 
last mile of the road before he came to the town 
which brought him in sight of the mansion-house. 
It was in this last gallop that the fiery mustang 
and his rider flashed by the old Doctor. Cassia 
pointed her sharp ears and shied to let them 
pass. The Doctor turned and looked through 
the little round glass in the back of his sulky. 

“ Dick Turpin, there, will find more than his 
match’” said the Doctor. 


t06 


ELSIE VEKKEK. 


CHAPTER XII. 

THE APOLLINEAN INSTITUTE. 

{Wilh Extracts from the Report of the Committee”') 

The readers of this narrative will hardly ex- 
pect any elaborate details of the educational 
management of the Apollinean Institute. They 
cannot be supposed to take the same interest in 
its affairs as was shown by the Annual Commit- 
tees who reported upon its condition and pros- 
pects. As these Committees were, however, an 
important part of the mechanism of the estab- 
lishment, some general account of their organi- 
zation and a few extracts from the Report of the 
one last appointed may not be out of place. 

Whether Mr. Silas Peckham had some contriv- 
ance for packing his Committees, whether they 
happened always to be made up of optimists by 
nature, whether they were cajoled into good-hu- 
mor by polite attentions, or whether they were 
always really delighted with the wonderful ac- 
quirements of the pupils and the admirable order 
pf the school, it is certain that their Annual Re* 


ELSIE VENNER. 


207 


ports were coached in language which might 
warm the heart of the most cold-blooded and cal- 
culating father that ever had a family of daugh- 
ters to educate. In fact, these Annual Reports 
were considered by JVIr. Peckham as his most 
effective advertisements. 

The first thing, therefore, was to see that the 
Committee was made up of persons known to 
the public. Some worn-out politician, in that 
leisurely and amiable transition-state v/hich comes 
between official extinction and the paralysis which 
will finish him as soon as his brain gets a little 
softer, made an admirable Chairman for Mr. Peck- 
ham, when he had the luck to pick up such an 
article. Old reputations, like old fashions, are 
more prized in the grassy than in the stony dis- 
tricts. An effete celebrity, who would never be 
heard of again in the great places until the fu- 
neral sermon waked up his memory for one part- 
ing spasm, finds himself in full flavor of renown 
a little farther back from the changing winds of 
the sea-coast. If such a public character was not 
to be had, so that there was no chance of heading 
the Report with the name of the Honorable Mr 
Somebody, the next best thing was to get the 
Reverend Dr. Somebody to take that conspicu- 
ms position. Then would follow two or three 
local worthies with Esquire after their names. 
If any stray literary personage from one of the 
great cities happened to be within reach, he was 
pounced upon by Mr. Silas Peckham. It was a 


ELSIE VENNER. 


208 

hard case for the poor man, who had travelled a 
hundred miles or two to the outside suburbs after 
peace and unwatered milk, to be pumped for a 
speech in this unexpected waT^-. It was harder 
still, if he had been induced to venture a few 
tremulous remarks, to be obliged to write them 
out for the “ Rockland Weekly Universe,” with 
the chance of seeing them used as an advertising 
certificate as long as he lived, if he lived as long 
as the late Dr. Waterhouse did after giving his 
certificate in favor of WhitweU’s celebrated Ce- 
phalic Snuff. 

The Report of the last Committee had been 

signed by the Honorable , late of 

, as Chairman. (It is with reluctance that 

the name and titles are left in blank ; but our pub- 
lic characters are so familiarly known to the whole 
community that this reserve becomes necessary.) 
The other members of the Committee were the 
Reverend Mr. Butters, of a neighboring town, 
who was to make the prayer before the Exercises 
of the Exhibition, and two or three notabilities 
of Rockland, with geoponic eyes, and glabrous, 
bumpless foreheads. A few extracts from the 
Report are subjoined: — 

“ The Committee have great pleasure in record- 
ing their unanimous opinion, that the Institutior 
was never in so flourishing a condition. . . . 

The health of the pupils is excellent ; the ad 
enirable quality of food supplied shows itself ii 


ELSIE VENEER. 


209 


their appearance ; their blooming aspect excited 
the admiration of the Committee, and bears tes- 
timony to the assiduity of the excellent Matron. 

“ moral and religious condition most 

encouraging, which they cannot but attribute to 
the personal efforts and instruction of the faithful 
Principal, who considers religious instruction a 
solemn duty which he cannot commit to other 
people. 

“ great progress in their studies, un- 

der the intelligent superintendence of the accom- 
plished Principal, assisted by Mr. Badger, [Mr. 
Langdon’s predecessor,] Miss Barley, the lady 
who superintends the English branches. Miss 
Crabs, her assistant and teacher of Modern Lan- 
guages, and Mr. Schneider, teacher of French, 

German, Latin, and Music 

‘‘ Education is the great business of the Insti- 
tute. Amusements are objects of a secondary 
nature ; but these are by no means neglected. . . . 

“ English compositions of great 

originality and beauty, creditable alike to the 
head and heart of their accomplished authors. 

several poems of a very high order of 

merit, which would do honor to the literature 

of any age or country life-like drawings, 

showing great proficiency. . . . Many converse 
fluently in various modern languages per- 

form the most difficult airs wit'n the skill of pro- 
fessional musicians. . . . 

« advantages unsurpassed, if equalled 

14 


VOL. L 


210 


ELSIE VENI^ER. 


by those of any Institution in the country, and 
reflecting the highest honor on the distinguished 
Head of the Establishment, Silas Peckham, Es- 
quire, and his admirable Lady, the Matron, with 
theii worthy assistants ” 

The perusal of this Report did Mr. Bernard 
more good than a week’s vacation would have 
done. It gave him such a laugh as he had not 
had for a month. The way in which Silas Peck- 
ham had made his Committee say what he wanted 
them to — for he recognized a number of expres- 
sions in the Report as coming directly from the 
lips of his principal, and could not help thinking 
how cleverly he had forced his phrases, as jug- 
glers do the particular card they wish their dupe 
to take — struck him as particularly neat and 
pleasing. 

He had passed through the sympathetic and 
emotional stages in his new experience, and had 
arrived at the philosophical and practical state, 
which takes things coolly, and goes to work to 
set them right He had breadth enough of view 
to see that there was nothing so very excep- 
tional in this educational trader’s dealings with 
\iis subordinates, but he had also manly feeling 
enough to attack the particular individual in- 
stance of wrong before him. There are plenty 
oi dealers in morals, as in ordinary traffic, who 
confine themselves to wholesale business. Thej 
cave the small necessity of their next-door neigb 


ELSIE VENNER. 


211 


bor to the retailers, who are poorer in statisticf- 
and general facts, but richer in the every-day char 
ities. Mr. Bernard felt, at first, as one does whc 
sees a gray rat steal out of a drain and begin 
gnawing at the bark of some tree loaded with 
fruit or blossoms, which he wdil soon girdle, if he 
is let alone. The first impulse is to murder him 
with the nearest ragged stone. Then one re- 
members that he is a rodent, acting after the law 
of his kind, and cools down and is contented to 
drive him off and guard the tree against his teeth 
for the future. As soon as this is done, one can 
watch his attempts at mischief with a certain 
amusement. 

This was the kind of process Mr. Bernard had 
gone through. First, the indignant surprise of a 
generous nature, when it comes unexpectedly into 
relations with a mean one. Then the impulse of 
extermination, — a divine instinct, intended to 
keep down vermin of all classes to their working 
averages in the economy of Nature. Then a re- 
turn of cheerful tolerance, — a feeling, that, if the 
Deity could bear with rats and sharpers, he could ; 
with a confident trust, that, in the long run, ter- 
riers and honest men would have the upperhand, 
and a grateful consciousness that he had been 
sent just at the right time to come between a 
patient victim and the master who held her in 
peonage. 

Having once made up hia mind what to do, 
Mr. Bernard was as good-natured and hopeful aa 


212 


ELSIE VENNER. 


ever. He had the great advantage, from his pro- 
fessional training, of knowing how to recognize 
and deal with the nervous disturbances to which 
overtasked women are so liable. He saw weU 
enough that Helen Darley would certainly kil 
herself or lose her wits, if he could not lighten 
ner labors and lift off a large part of her weight 
of cares. The worst of it was, that she was one 
of those women who naturally overwork tlem- 
selves, like those horses who will go at the top 
of their pace until they drop. Such women are 
dreadfully unmanageable. It is as hard reasoning 
with them as it would have been reasoning with 
lo, when she was flying over land and sea, driven 
by the sting of the never-sleeping gadfly. 

This was a delicate, interesting game that he 
played. Under one innocent pretext or another, 
he invaded this or that special province she had 
made her own. He would collect the themes 
and have them all read and marked, answer all 
the puzzling questions in mathematics, make the 
other teachers come to him for directions, and in 
this way gradually took upon himself not only all 
the general superintendence that belonged to hia 
office, but stole away so many of the special 
duties which might fairly have belonged to his 
assistant, that, before she knew it, she was look- 
ing better and feeling more cheerful than for many 
and many a month before. 

When the nervous energy is depressed by an} 
bodily cause, or exhausted by Dverworking, thert 


ELSIE VENNER. 


2P 

follow effects which have often been misinterpret- 
ed by moralists, and especially by theologians. 
The conscience itself becomes neuralgic, some- 
times actually inflamed, so that the least touch is 
agony. Of all liars and false accusers, a sick 
conscience is the most inventive and indefatiga- 
ble. The devoted daughter, wife, mother, whose 
life has been given to unselfish labors, who has 
filled a place which it seems to others only an 
angel would make good, reproaches herself with 
incompetence and neglect of duty. The humble 
Christian, who has been a model to others, calls 
himself a worm of the dust on one page of his 
diary, and arraigns himself on the next for com- 
ing short of the perfection of an archangel. 

Conscience itself requires a conscience, or noth- 
ing can be more unscrupulous. It told Saul that 
he did weU in persecuting the Christians. It has 
goaded countless multitudes of various creeds to 
endless forms of self-torture. The cities of India 
are full of cripples it has made. The hill-sides 
of Syria are riddled with holes, where miserable 
hermits, whose lives it had palsied, lived and died 
like the vermin they harbored. Our libraries are 
crammed with books written by spiritual hypo- 
chondriacs, who inspected all their moral secretions 
a dozen times a day. They are full of interest, 
bui they should be transferred from the shelf of 
the theologian to that of the medical man who 
makes a study of insanity. 

This was the state into which too much work 


ELSIE VENNER. 


fl4 

and too much responsibility were bringing Helen 
Darley, when the new master came and lifted so 
much of tiie burden that was crushing her as 
must be removed before she could have a chance 
to recover her natural elasticity and buoyancy. 
Many of the noblest women, suffering like her, 
fcut less fortunate in being relieved at the righi 
moment, die worried out of life by the perpetual 
teasing of this inflamed, neuralgic conscience. 
So subtile is the line which separates the true 
and almost angelic sensibility of a healthy, bu** 
exalted nature, from the soreness of a soul whicf 
is sympathizing with a morbid state of the body 
that it is no wonder they are often confounded 
And thus many good women are suffered to per 
ish by that form of spontaneous combustion in 
which the victim goes on toiling day and nighi 
with the hidden fire consuming her, untiJ all at 
once her cheek whitens, and, as we look upon her 
she drops away, a heap of ashes. The more they 
overwork themselves, the more exacting becomes 
the sense of duty, — as the draught of the loco- 
motive’s furnace blows stronger and makes the 
fire burn more fiercely, the faster it spins along 
the track. 

It is not very likely, as was said at the begin- 
ning of this chapter, that we shall trouble our- 
selves a great deal about the internal affairs of 
the Apollinean Institute. These schools are, in 
the nature of things, not so very unlike each othei 
as to require a minute description for each partic 


ELSIE VENITEIR. 


215 


nlar one among them. They have all very much 
the same general features, pleasing and displeas* 
ing. All feeding-establishments have something 
odious about them, — from the wretched country- 
nouses where paupers are farmed out to the low- 
est bidder, up to the commons-tables at colleges, 
and even the fashionable boarding-house. A per- 
son's appetite should be at war with no other 
purse than his own. Young people, especially, 
who have a bone-factory at work in them, and 
have to feed the living looms of innumerable 
growing tissues, should be provided for, if possi- 
ble, by those who love them like their own flesh 
and blood. Elsewhere their appetites will be sure 
to mr4.ke them enemies, or, what are almost as 
bad, friends whose interests are at variance with 
the claims of their exacting necessities and de- 
mands. 

Besides, all commercial transactions in regard 
to the most sacred interests of life are hateful 
even to those who profit by them. The clergy- 
man, the physician, the teacher, must be paid; 
but each of them, if his duty be performed in 
the true spirit, can hardly help a shiver of disgust 
when money is counted out to him for adminis- 
tering the consolations of religion, for saving some 
precious life, for sowing the seeds of Christian 
civilization in young ingenuous souls. 

And yet all these schools, with their provincial 
French and their mechanical accomplishments 
«vith their cheap parade of diplomas and com 


216 


ELSIE VENNER. 


mencements and other public honors, have an 
ever fresh interest to all who see the task they are 
performing in our new social order. These girls 
are not being educated for governesses, or to be 
exported, with other manufactured articles, to 
colonies where there happens to be a surplus of 
males. Most of them will be wives, and every 
American-born husband is a possible President 
of these United States. Any one of these girls 
may be a four-years’ queen. There is no sphere 
of human activity so exalted that she may not 
be called upon to fill it. 

But there is another consideration of far higher 
interest. The education of our community to all 
that is beautiful is flowing in mainly through its 
women, and that to a considerable extent by the 
aid of these large establishments, the least perfect 
of which do something to stimulate the higher 
tastes and partially instruct them. Sometimes 
there is, perhaps, reason to fear that girls will be 
too highly educated for their own happiness, if 
they are lifted by their culture out of the range of 
the practical and every-day working youth by 
whom they are surrounded. But this is a risk we 
must take. Our young men come into active life 
so early, that, if our girls were not educated to 
something beyond mere practical duties, our ma- 
terial prosperity would outstrip our culture ; as 
it often does in large places where money is made 
too rapidly. This is the meaning, therefore, of 
that somewhat ambitious programme commoi 


ELSIE TENNER. 


217 


CO most of these large institutions, at wlicli we 
Bometimes smile, perhaps unwisely or uncharita- 
bly. 

We shall take it for granted that the routine of 
bistruction went on at the Apollinean Institute 
much as it does in other schools of the same class 
People, young or old, are wonderfully different, if 
we contrast extremes in pairs. They approach 
much nearer, if we take them in groups of twenty. 
Take two separate hundreds as they come, with- 
out choosing, and you get the gamut of human 
character in both so completely that you can 
strike many chords in each which shall be in per- 
fect unison with corresponding ones in the other. 
If we go a step farther, and compare the popula- 
tion of two villages of the same race and region, 
there is such a regularly graduated distribution 
and parallelism of character, that it seems as if 
Nature must turn out human beings in sets like 
chessmen. 

It must be confessed that the position in which 
Mr. Bernard now found himself had a pleasing 
danger about it which might well justify all the 
fears entertained on his account by more experi- 
enced friends, when they learned that he was 
engaged in a Young Ladies’ Seminary. The 
school never went on more smoothly than during 
the first period of his administration, after he had 
arranged its duties, and taken his share, and even 
more than his share, upon himself. But huma;' 
nature does not wait for the diploma of the Apol 


B18 


ELSIE VENNER. 


linean Institute to claim the exercise of its in* 
Btincts and faculties. These young girls saw but 
little of the youth of the neighborhood. The 
mansion-house young men were off at college oi 
in the cities, or making love to each other’s sis- 
ters, or at any rate unavailable for some reason oi 
other. There were a few “clerks,” — that is, 
young men who attended shops, commonly called 
“ stores,” — who were fond of walking by the In- 
stitute, when they were off duty, for the sake of 
exchanging a word or a glance with any one of 
the young ladies they might happen to know, if 
any such were stirring abroad: crude young men, 
mostly, with a great many “ Sirs ” and “ Ma’ams ” 
in their speech, and with that style of address 
sometimes acquired in the retail business, as if 
the salesman were recommending himself to a 
customer, — “ First-rate family article. Ma’am ; 
warranted to wear a lifetime ; just one yard and 
three quarters in this pattern. Ma’am ; sha’n’t I 
have the pleasure ? ” and so forth. If there had 
been ever so many of them, and if they had been 
ever so fascinating, the quarantine of the Institute 
^as too rigorous to allow any romantic infection 
to be introduced from without. 

Anybody might see what would happen, with 
a good-looking, well-dressed, well-bred young 
man, who had the authority of a master, it is 
true, but the manners of a friend and equal, mov- 
ing about among these young girls day after day 
flis eyes meeting theirs, his breath mingling with 


ELSIE VENNER. 


219 


theirs, his voice growing familiar to them, never 
in any kirsh tones, often soothing, encouraging, 
always sympathetic, with its male depth and 
breadth of sound among the chorus of trebles, aa 
If it were a river in which a hundred of these 
ittle piping streamlets might lose themselves ; 
anybody might see what would happen. Young 
girls wote home to their parents that they en- 
joyed themselves much, this term, at the Institute, 
and thought they were making rapid progress in 
their studies. There was a great enthusiasm for 
the young master’s .reading-classes in English 
poetry. Some of the poor little things began to 
adorn themselves with an extra ribbon, or a bit of 
such jewelry as they had before kept for great oc- 
casions. Dear souls ! they only half knew what 
they were doing it for. Does the bird know why 
its feathers grow more brilliant and its voice be- 
comes musical in the pairing season ? 

And so, in the midst of this quiet inland town, 
where a mere accident had placed JVlr. Bernard 
Dangdon, there was a concentration of explosive 
materials which might at any time change its Ar- 
cadian and academic repose into a scene of dan- 
gerous commotion. What said Helen Darley, 
when she saw with her woman’s glance that more 
than one giil, when she should be looking at hei 
book, was looking over it toward the master’s 
^esk ? Was her own heart warmed by any live- 
lier feeling than gratitude, as its life began tc 
^w with fuller pulses, and the morning sky 


220 


ELSIE VENNEE. 


again looked bright and the flowers recovered 
Iheir lost fragrance ? Was there any strange, 
mysterious affinity between the master and the 
dark girl who sat by herself? Could she call him 
at will by looking at him ? Could it be tha 

? It made her shiver to think of it. — And 

who was that strange horseman who passed Mr. 
Bernard at dusk the other evening, looking so like 
Mephistopheles galloping hard to be in season at 
the witches’ Sabbath-gathering ? That must be 
the cousin of Elsie’s who wants to marry her, 
they say. A dangerous-looking fellow for a rival, 
if one took a fancy to the dark girl I And who is 
she, and what ? — by what demon is she haunted, 
by what taint is she blighted, by what curse is 
she followed, by what destiny is she marked, that 
her strange beauty has such a terror in it, and 
that hardly one shall dare to love her, and her eye 
glitters always, but warms for none ? 

Some of these questions are ours. Some were 
Helen Barley’s. Some of them mingled with the 
dreams of Bernard Langdon, as he slept the night 
after meeting the strange horseman. In the morn- 
ing he happened to be a little late in entering the 
fechool-room. There was something between the 
eaves of the Virgil which lay upon his desk. He 
opened it and saw a freshly gathered mountain- 
flower. He looked at Elsie, instinctively, invol- 
untarily. She had another such flower on hei 
wsast. 

A young girl’s graceful compliment, — that is 


ELSIE VENNER. 


221 


all, — no doubt, — no doubt. It was odd that the 
flower should have happened to be laid between 
the leaves of the Fourth Book of the “iEneid,” 
and at this line, — 

“ Incipit effari, mediaque in voce resistit.” 

A remembrance of an ancient superstition flashed 
through the master’s mind, and he determined to 
try the Sortes Virgiliance, He shut the volume, 
and opened it again at a venture, — The storj 
of Laocoon! 

He read, with a strange feeling of unwilling 
fascination, from “ Horresco ref evens ” to “ Bis 
medium amplexif and flung the book from him, 
as if its leaves had been steeped in the subtle poi- 
sons that princes die of. 


Z22 


ELSIE VENNER. 


CHAPTER XTII. 

CURIOSITY. 

People will talk. Ciascun lo dice is a tuna 
that is played oftener than the national air of 
this country or any other. 

“ That’s what they say. Means to marry her, 
if she is his cousin. Got money himself, — that’s 
the story, — but wants to come and live in the 
old place, and get the Dudley property by-and- 
by.” — “ Mother’s folks was wealthy.” — “ Twen- 
ty-three to twenty-five year old.” — “He a’n’t 
more’n twenty, or twenty-one at the outside.” 
• — “ Looks as if he knew too much to be only 
twenty year old.” — “ Guess he’s been through 
the mill, — don’t look so green, anyhow, — hey ? 
Did y’ ever mind that cut over his left eye- 
brow ? ” 

So they gossipped in Rockland. The young 
fellows could make nothing of Dick Venner, 
He was shy and proud with the few who made 
advances to him. The young ladies called him 
handsome and romantic, but he looked at them 
like a many-tailed pacha who was in the habit 
of ordering his wives by the dozen. 


ELSIE VENIfER. 


223 


“ What do you think of the young man over 
there at the Venners’ ? ” said Miss Arabella 
Thornton to her father. 

“ Handsome,” said the Judge, “ but dangerous- 
looking. His face is indictable at common law. 
Do you know, my dear, I think there is a blank 
at the Sheriff’s office, with a place for his name 
in it ? ” 

The Judge paused and looked grave, as if he 
had just listened to the verdict of the jury and 
was going to pronounce sentence. 

“ Have you heard anything against him?” said 
the Judge’s daughter. 

“ Nothing. But I don’t like these mixed bloods 
and half-told stories. Besides, I have seen a good 
many desperate fellows at the bar, and I have a 
fancy they all have a look belonging to them. 
The worst one I ever sentenced looked a good 
deal like this fellow. A wicked mouth. All our 
other features are made for us ; but a man makes 
his own mouth.” 

‘‘ Who was the person you sentenced?” 

“ He was a young fellow that undertook to 
garrote a man who had won his money at 
cards. The same slender shape, the same cun- 
Ling, fieicc look, smoothed over with a plausi- 
ble air. Depend upon it, there is an expression 
in all the sort of people who live by their wits 
when they can, and by worse weapons when 
their wits fail them, that we old law-doctors 
know just as well as the medical counsellors 


224 


ELSIE VENNER. 


know the marks of disease in a man’s face. Dr. 
Kittredge looks at a man and says he is going to 
die ; I look at another man and say he is going 
to be hanged, if nothing happens. I don’t say so 
of this one, but I don’t like his looks. I wonder 
Dudley Venner takes to him so kindly.” 

“ It’s all for Elsie’s sake,” said Miss Thornton * 
‘‘ I feel quite sure of that. He never does any- 
thing that is not meant for her in some way. I 
suppose it amuses her to have her cousin about 
the house. She rides a good deal since he has 
been here. Have you seen them galloping about 
together ? He looks like my idea of a Spanish 
bandit on that wild horse of his.” 

“ Possibly he has been one, — or is one,” said 
the Judge, — smiling as men smile whose lips 
have often been freighted with the life and death 
of their fellow-creatures. “ I met them riding the 
other day. Perhaps Dudley is right, if it pleases 
her to have a companion. What will happen, 
though, if he makes love to her ? Will Elsie be 
easily taken with such a fellow? You young 
folks are supposed to know more about these 
matters than we middle-aged people.” 

Nobody can tell. Elsie is not like anybody 
else. The girls who have seen most of her think 
she hates men, all but ‘ Dudley,’ as she calls her 
father. Some of tnem doubt whether she loves 
him. They doubt whether she can love anything 
human, except perhaps the old black woman who 
has taken care of her since she was a baby. Th 


ELSIE VENNER. 


225 


Tillage people have the strangest stories about her . 
you know what they call her ? ” 

She whispered three words in her father’s ear. 
The Judge changed color as she spoke, sighed 
deeply, and was silent as if lost in thought for 
a moment. 

“ I remember her mother,” he said, “ so well ! 
A sweeter creature never lived. Elsie has some- 
thing of her in her look, but those are not her 
mother’s eyes. They were dark, but soft, as in 
all I ever saw of her race. Her father’s are dark 
too, but mild, and even tender, I should say. I 
don’t know what there is about Elsie’s, — but 
do you know, my dear, I find myself curiously 
influenced by them ? I have had to face a good 
many sharp eyes and hard ones, — murderers’ 
eyes and pirates’, — men who had to be watched 
in the bar, where they stood on trial, for fear 
they should spring on the prosecuting officers like 
tigers, — but I never saw such eyes as Elsie’s; 
and yet they have a kind of drawing virtue or 
power about them, — I don’t know what else to 
call it : have you never observed this ? ” 

His daughter smiled in her turn. 

“ Never observed it ? Why, of course, nobody 
could be with Elsie Venner and not observe it 
There are a good many other strange things about 
her : did you ever notice how she dresses ? ” 

“ Why, handsomely enough, I should think,” 
Ihe Judge answered. “ I suppose she dresses as 
ihe likes, and sends to the city for what she 

VOL. I. 15 


226 


ELSIE VENNER. 


wants. What do you mean in particular ? We 
men notice effects in dress, but not much in de- 
tail.” 

“ You never noticed the colors and patterns of 
her dresses ? You never remarked anything curi- 
ous about her ornaments? Well! I don’t be- 
lieve you men know, half the time, whether a 
lady wears a ninepenny collar or a thread-lace 
cape worth a thousand dollars. I don’t believe 
you know a silk dress from a bombazine one. I 
don’t believe you can tell whether a woman is in 
black or in colors, unless you happen to know 
she is a widow. Elsie Vernier has a strange 
taste in dress, let me tell you. She sends for 
Che oddest patterns of stuffs, and picks out the 
most curious things at the jeweller’s, whenever 
she goes to town with her father. They say 
the old Doctor tells him to let her have her way 
about all such matters. Afraid of her mind, if 
she is contradicted, I suppose. — You’ve heard 
about her going to school at that place, — the 
‘Institoot,’ as those people call it? They say 
she’s bright enough in her way, — has studied 
at home, you know, with her father a good deal, 
— knows some modern languages and Latin, I 
believe : at any rate, she would have it so, — she 
must go to the ‘ Institoot.’ They have a very 
good female teacher there, I hear ; and the new 
master, that young Mr. Langdon, looks and talks 
jke a well-educated young man. I wonder wha 
they’ll make of Elsie, between them ! ” 


ELSIE VENDER. 


227 


So they talked at the Judge’s, in the calm, 
judicial-looking mansion-house, in the grave, still 
library, with the troops of wan-hued law-books 
Etaring blindly out of their titles at them as they 
talked, like the ghosts of dead attorneys fixed 
motionless and speechless, each with a thin, 
golden film over his unwinking eyes. 

In the mean time, everything went on quietly 
enough after Cousin Richard’s return. A man 
of sense, — * that is, a man who knows perfectly 
well that a cool head is worth a dozen warm 
hearts in carrying the fortress of a woman’s affec- 
tions, (not yours, “ Astarte,” nor yours, “ Viola,”) 
— who knows that men are rejected by women 
every day because they, the men, love them, and 
are accepted every day because they do not, and 
therefore can study the arts of pleasing, — a man 
of sense, when he finds he has established his 
second parallel too soon, retires quietly to his 
first, and begins working on his covered ways 
again. [The whole art of love may be read in 
any Encyclopaedia under the title Fortification^ 
where the terms just used are explained.] After 
the little adventure of the necklace, Dick retreated 
at once to his first parallel. Elsie loved riding, — 
and would go off with him on a gallop now 
and then. He was a master of all those 
strange Indian horseback-feats which shame the 
tricks of the circus-riders, and used to astonish 
and almost amuse her sometimes by disappear- 
ing from his saddle, like a phantom horseman, 


228 


ELSIE VENNER. 


lying flat against the side of the bounJing creat- 
ure that bore him, as if he were a hunting leop- 
ard with his claws in the horse’s flank and flat- 
tening himself out against his heaving ribs. 
Elsie knew a little Spanish too, which she had 
earned from the young person who had taught 
her dancing, and Dick enlarged her vocabulary 
with a few soft phrases, and would sing her a 
song sometimes, touching the air upon an an- 
cient-looking guitar they had found with the 
ghostly things in the garret, — a quaint old in- 
strument, marked E. M. on the back, and sup- 
posed to have belonged to a certain Elizabeth 
Mascarene, before mentioned in connection with 
a work of art, — a fair, dowerless lady, who 
smiled and sung and faded away, unwedded, a 
hundred years ago, as dowerless ladies, not a 
few, are smiling and singing and fading now, 
— God grant each of them His love, — and one 
human heart as its interpreter ! 

As for school, Elsie went or stayed away as 
she liked. Sometimes, when they thought she 
was at her desk in the great school-room, she 
would be on The Mountain, — alone always. 
Dick wanted to go with her, but she would never 
let him. Once, when she had followed the zigzag 
path a little way up, she looked back and caught 
a glimpse of him following her. She turned and 
passed him without a word, but giving him a lool^ 
which seemed to make the scars on his wrist tii> 
gle, went to her room, where she locked hersel/ 


ELSIE VENNER. 


229 


op, and did not come out again till evening,— 
Old Sophy having brought her food, and get it 
down, not speaking, but looking into her eyes 
inquiringly, like a dumb beast trying to feel out 
his master’s will in his face. The evening was 
clear and the moon shining. As Dick sat at his 
chamber-window, looking at the mountain-side, 
he saw a gray-dressed figure flit between the trees 
and steal along the narrow path which led up- 
ward. Elsie’s pillow was impressed that night, 
but she had not been missed by the household, — 
for Dick knew enough to keep his own counsel. 
The next morning she avoided him and went off 
early to school. It was the same morning that 
the young master found the flower between the 
leaves of his Virgil. 

The girl got over her angry fit, and was pleas- 
ant enough with her cousin for a few days after 
this; but she shunned rather than sought him. 
She had taken a new interest in her books, and 
especially in certain poetical readings which the 
master conducted with the elder scholars. This 
gave Master Langdon a good chance to study her 
ways when her eye was on her book, to notice the 
inflections of her voice, to watch for any expres- 
sion of her sentiments ; for, to tell the truth, he 
had a kind of fear that the girl had taken a fancy 
to him, and, though she interested him, he did not 
wish to study her heart from the inside. 

The more he saw her, the more the sadness of 
ter beauty wrought upon him. She looked as ii 


230 


ELSIE VENNER. 


ghe might hate, but could not love. She hardly 
smiled at anything, spoke rarely, but seemed xa 
feel that her natural power of expression lay all in 
her bright eyes, the force of which so many had 
felt, but none perhaps had tried to explain to 
themselves. A person accustomed to watch th 
faces of those who were ailing in body or mind, 
and to search in every line and tint for some un- 
derlying source of disorder, could hardly help an- 
alyzing the impression such a face produced upon 
him. The light of those beautiful eyes was like 
the lustre of ice ; in all her features there was 
nothing of that human warmth which shows that 
sympathy has reached the soul beneath the mask 
of flesh it wears. The look was that of remote- 
ness, of utter isolation. There was in its stony 
apathy, it seemed to him, the pathos which we 
find in the blind who show no film or speck over 
the organs of sight ; for Nature had meant her to 
be lovely, and left out nothing but love. And yet 
the master could not help feeling that some in- 
stinct was working in this girl which was in some 
way leading her to seek his presence. She did 
not lift her gliA+ering eyes upon him as at first. It 
seemed strange that she did not, for they were 
surely her natural weapons of conquest. Her 
color did not come and go like that of young girla 
under excitement. She had a clear brunette com. 
plexion, a little sun-touched, it may be, — for the 
master noticed once, when her necklace waa 
slightly displaced, that a faint ring or band of a 


ELSIE VENEER. 


231 


little lighter shade than the rest of the surface en- 
circled her neck. What was the slight peculiarity 
of her enunciation, when she read ? Not a lisp 
certainly, but the least possible imperfection in 
articulating some of the lingual sounds, — just 
enough to be noticed at first, and quite forgotten 
after being a few times heard. 

Not a word about the flower on either side. It 
was not uncommon for the school-girls to leave a 
rose or pink or wild flower on the teacher’s desk. 
Finding it in the Virgil was nothing, after all ; it 
was a little delicate flower, which looked as if it 
were made to press, and it was probably shut in 
by accident at the particular place where ho found 
it. He took it into his head to examine it in a 
botanical point of view. He found it was not 
common, — that it grew only in certain localities, 
— and that one of these was among the rocks of 
the eastern spur of The Mountain. 

It happened to come into his head how the 
Swiss youth climb the sides of the Alps to find 
the flower called the Edelweiss for the maidens 
whom they wish to please. It is a pretty fancy, 
that of scaling some dangerous height before the 
dawn, so as to gather the flower in its freshness, 
that the favored maiden may wear it to church on 
Sunday morirng, a proof at once of her lover’s 
devotion and his courage. Mr. Bernard deter- 
mined to explore the region where this flower was 
said to grow, that he might see where the wild 
girl sought the blossoms of which Nature was so 
’ealous. 


232 


ELSIE VEXNER. 


It was on a warm, fair Saturday afteriioon tliat 
he undertook his land-voyage of discovery. He 
had more curiosity, it may be, than he would have 
owned ; for he had heard of the girl’s wandering 
habits, and the guesses about her sylvan haunts, 
and was thinking what the chances were that ho 
should meet her in some strange place, or come 
upon traces of her which would tell secrets she 
would not care to have known. 

The woods are all alive to one who walks 
through them with his mind in an excited state, 
and his eyes and ears wide open. The trees are 
always talking, not merely whispering with their 
leaves, (for every tree talks to itself in that way, 
even when it stands alone in the middle of a pas- 
ture,) but grating their boughs against each other, 
as old horn-handed farmers press their dry, rus- 
tling palms together, dropping a nut or a leaf or a 
twig, clicking to the tap of a woodpecker, or rus- 
tling as a squirrel flashes along a branch. It was 
now the season of singing-birds, and the woods 
were haunted with mysterious, tender music. 
The voices of the birds which love the deeper 
Dhadcs of the forest are sadder than those of the 
open fields : these are the nuns who have taken 
the veil, the hermits that have hidden themselves 
away from the world and tell their griefs to the 
infinite listening Silences of the wilderness, — for 
the one deep inner silence that Nature break? 
with hei fitful superficial sounds becomes multi 
plied as the image of a star in ruffled watew 


ELSIE VENDER. 


Strange! The woods at first convey the impres- 
sion of profound repose, and yet, if you watch their 
ways with open ear, you find the life which is in 
them is restless and nervous as that of a woman ; 
the little twigs are crossing and twining and sep« 
arating like slender fingers that cannot be still , 
the stray leaf is to be flattened into its place like a 
truant curl ; the limbs sway and twist, impatient 
of their constrained attitude; and the rounded 
masses of foliage swell upward and subside from 
time to time with long soft sighs, and, it may 
be, the falling of a few rain-drops which had lain 
hidden among the deeper shadows. I pray you, 
notice, in the sweet summer days which will soon 
see you among the mountains, this inward tran- 
quillity that belongs to the heart of the woodland, 
with this nervousness, for I do not know what 
else to call it, of outer movement. One would 
say, that Nature, like untrained persons, could not 
sit still without nestling about or doing something 
with her limbs or features, and that high breeding 
was only to be looked for in trim gardens, where 
the soul of the trees is ill at ease perhaps, but theii 
manners are unexceptionable, and a rustling 
branch or leaf falling out of season is an in 
decorum. The real forest is hardly still except 
in the Indian summer ; then there is death in the 
house, and they are waiting for the sharp shrunk 
en months to come with white raiment fur the 
lummer’s burial. 

There were many hemlocks in this neighbor 


234 


ELSIE VENNER. 


hood, the grandest and most solemn ol all the 
forest-trees in the mountain regions. L^p to ?. 
certain period of growth they are eminently beau 
tiful, their boughs disposed in the most graceful 
pagoda-like series of close terraces, tliick and dark 
^^dth green crystalline leaflets. In spring the ten- 
der snoots come out of a paler green, finger-like, 
as if they were pointing to the violets at their 
feet. But when the trees have grown old, and 
their rough boles measure a yard and more 
through their diameter, they are no longer beau- 
tiful, but they have a sad solemnity all their own, 
too full of meaning to require the heart’s com- 
ment to be framed in words. Below, all their 
earthward-looking branches are sapless and shat- 
tered, splintered by the weight of many winters’ 
snows ; above, they are still green and full of life, 
but their summits overtop all the deciduous trees 
around them, and in their companionship with 
heaven they are alone. On these the lightning 
loves to fall. One such Mr. Bernard saw, — or 
rather, what had been one such ; for the bolt had 
torn the tree like an explosion from within, and 
the ground was strewed all around the broken 
stump with flakes of rough bark and strips and 
chips of shivered wood, into which the old tree 
had been rent by the bursting rocket from the 
thunder-cloud. 

The master had struck up The Mountain 

obliquely from the western side of the Dudley 
mansion-house. In this way he ascended unt^ 


ELSIE TENNER. 


235 


he reached a point many hundred feet above the 
level of the plain, and commanding all the coun- 
try beneath and around. Almost at his feet he 
Baw the mansion-house, the chimney standing out 
of the middle of the roof, or rather, like a black 
square hole in it, — the trees almost directly over 
their stems, the fences as lines, the whole nearly 
as an architect would draw a ground-plan of the 
house and the inclosures round it. It fright 
ened him to see how the huge masses of rocL 
and old forest-growths hung over the home be- 
low. As he descended a little and drew near 
the ledge of evil name, he was struck with the 
appearance of a long narrow fissure that ran 
parallel with it and above it for many rods, not 
seemingly of very old standing, — for there were 
many fibres of roots which had evidently been 
snapped asunder when the rent took place, and 
some of which were still succulent in both sep- 
arated portions. 

Mr. Bernard had made up his mind, when he 
set forth, not to come back before he had exam- 
ined the dreaded ledge. He had half persuaded 
himself that it was scientific curiosity. He 
wished to examine the rocks, to see what fiow* 
ers grew there ^ and perhaps to pick up an ad- 
venture in the zoological line; for he had on a 
pair of high, stout boots, and he carried a stick 
in his hand, which was forked at one extremity 
BO as to be very convenient to hold down a 
crotalus with, if he should happen to encouiitei 


m 


ELSIE VENNER, 


one. He knew the aspect of the ledge from a 
distance; for its bald and leprous-looking de- 
clivities stood out in their nakedness from the 
wooded sides of The Mountain, when this was 
viewed from certain points of the village. But 
the nearer aspect of the blasted region had some- 
tning frightful in it. The cliffs were water-worn, 
as if they had been gnawed for thousands of 
years by hungry waves. In some places they 
overhung their base so as to look like leaning 
towers which might topple overeat any minute. 
In other parts they were scooped into niches or 
caverns. Here and there they were cracked in 
deep fissures, some of them of such width that 
one might enter them, if he cared to run the 
risk of meeting the regular tenants, who might 
treat him as an intruder. 

Parts of the ledge were cloven perpendicu- 
larly, with nothing but cracks or slightly project- 
ing edges in which or on which a foot could 
find hold. High up on one of these precipitous 
walls of rock he saw some tufts of flowers, and 
knew them at once for the same that he had 
found between the leaves of his Virgil. Not 
there, surely! No woman would have clung 
against that steep, rough parapet to gather an 
idle blossom. And yet the master looked round 
everywhere, and even up the side of that rock, 
to see if there were no signs of a woman’s loot- 
step. He peered about curiously, as if his eye 
might fall on some of those fragments of dress 


ELSIE VENNER. 


237 


which women leave after them, whenever they 
run against each other or against anything else, 

' — in crowded ballrooms, in the brushwood after 
picnics, on the fences after rambles, scattered 
round over every place which has witnessed an 
act of violence, where rude hands have been 
laid upon them. Nothing. Stop, though, one 
moment. That stone is smooth and polished, 
as if it had been somewhat worn by the press- 
ure of human feet. There is one twig broken 
among the stems of that clump of shrubs. He 
put his foot upon the stone and took hold of 
the close-clinging shrub. In this way he turned 
a sharp angle of the rock and found himself on 
a natural platform, which lay in front of one of 
the wider fissures, — whether the mouth of a cav- 
ern or not he could not yet tell. A flat stone 
made an easy seat, upon which he sat down, as 
he was very glad to do, and looked mechanically 
about him. A small fragment splintered from 
the rock was at his feet. He took it and threw 
it down the declivity a little below where he sat. 
He looked about for a stem or a straw of some 
kind to bite upon, — a country-instinct, — relic, 
no doubt, of the old vegetable-feeding habits of 
Eden. Is that a stem or a straw? He picked it 
up. It was a hair-pin. 

To say that Mr. Langdon had a strange sort 
of thrill shoot through him at the sight of this 
harmless little implement would be a statement 
Qot at variance \»dth the fact of the case. That 


^38 


ELSIE VENNER 


Bmoolh stone had been often trodden, and ly 
what foot he could not doubt. He rose up from 
his seat to look round for other signs of a wom- 
an’s visits. What if there is a cavern here, where 
she has a retreat, fitted up, perhaps, as anchorites 
fitted their cells, — nay, it may be, carpeted and 
mirrored, and with one of those tiger-skins for a 
couch, such as they say the girl loves to lie on ? 
Let us look, at any rate. 

Mr. Bernard walked to the mouth of the cav- 
ern or fissure and looked into it. His look was 
met by the glitter of two diamond eyes, small, 
sharp, cold, shining out of the darkness, but glid- 
ing with a smooth, steady motion towards the 
light, and himself. He stood fixed, struck dumb, 
staring back into them with dilating pupils and 
sudden numbness of fear that cannot move, as in 
the terror of dreams. The two sparks of light 
came forward until they grew to circles of flame, 
and all at once lifted themselves up as if in angry 
surprise. Then for the first time thrilled in Mr. 
Bernard’s ears the dreadful sound that nothing 
which breathes, be it man or brute, can hear 
unmoved, — the long, loud, stinging whirr, as the 
huge, thick-bodied reptile shook his many-jointed 
rattle and adjusted his loops for the fatal stroke. 
His eyes were drawn as with magnets toward the 
circles of flame. His ears rung as in the over- 
ture to the swooning dream of chloroform. Na- 
ture was before man with her anaesthetics : the 
••at’s first shake stupefies the mouse ; the lion’t 


ELSIE VENNER. 


239 


first shake deadens the man’s fear and feeling, 
and the crotalus paralyzes before he strikes. He 
waited as in a trance, — waited as one that longs 
to nave the blow fall, and all over, as the man who 
shall be in two pieces in a second waits for the 
axe to drop. But while he looked straight into 
the flaming eyes, it seemed to him that they were 
losing their light and terror, that they were grow- 
ing tame and dull; the charm was dissolving the 
numbness was passing away, he could move once 
more. He heard a light breathing close to his 
ear, and, half turning, saw the face of Elsie Ven- 
ner, looking motionless into the reptile’s eyes, 
which had shrunk and faded under the strongei 
enchantment of her own. 


240 


ELSIE VENNEB. 


CHAPTER XIV. 

FAMILY SECRETS. 

It was commonly understood in the town of 
Rockland that Dudley Venner had had a great 
deal of trouble with that daughter of his, so hand- 
some, yet so peculiar, about whom there were so 
many strange stories. There was no end to the 
tales which were told of her extraordinary doings. 
Yet her name was never coupled with that of any 
youth or man, until this cousin had provoked re- 
mark by his visit ; and even then it was oftener 
in the shape of wondering conjectures whether he 
would dare to make love to her, than in any pre- 
tended knowledge of their relations to each other, 
that the public tongue exercised its village-pre- 
rogative of tattle. 

The more common version of the trouble at the 
mansion-house was this : — Elsie was not exactly 
in her right mind. Her temper was singular, her 
tastes were anomalous, her habits were lawless, 
her antipathies were many and intense, and she 
was liable to explosions of ungovernable anger. 
Some said that was not the worst of it. At 
oearly fifteen years old, when she was growing 


ELSIE VENNER. 


241 


fast, and in an irritable state of mrnd and body> 
she had had a governess placed over her for 
whom she had conceived an aversion. It was 
whispered among a few who knew more of the 
family secrets than others, that, worried and ex- 
asperated by the presence and jealous oversigh 
of this person, Elsie had attempted to get finally 
rid of her by unlawful means, such as young girls 
have been known to employ in their straits, and 
to which the sex at all ages has a certain instinct- 
ive tendency, in preference to more palpable in- 
struments for the righting of its wrongs. At any 
rate, this governess had been taken suddenly ill, 
and the Doctor had been sent for at midnight. 
Old Sophy had taken her master into a room 
apart, and said a few words to him which turned 
him as white as a sheet. As soon as he recov- 
ered himself, he sent Sophy out, called in the old 
Doctor, and gave him some few hints, on which 
he acted at once, and had the satisfaction of see- 
ing his patient out of danger before he left in the 
morning. It is proper to say, that, during the fol- 
lowing days, the most thorough search was made 
in every nook and cranny of those parts of the 
house which Elsie chiefly haunted, but nothing 
was found which might be accused of having 
been the intentional cause of the probably acci- 
dental sudden illness of the governess. Fron? 
this time forward her father was never easy 
Should he keep her apart, or shut he»- up, for feai 
»f risk to others, and so lose every chance of 
16 


TOL. I. 


E42 


ELSIE VENNER. 


restoring her mind to its healthy tone by kindlj 
influences and intercourse with wholesome na- 
tures ? There was no proof, only presumption, 
as to the agency of Elsie in the matter referred 
to. But the doubt was worse, perhaps, than cer- 
tainty would have been, — for then he would have 
known what to do. 

lie took the old Doctor as his adviser. The 
shrewd old man listened to the father’s story, his 
explanations of possibilities, of probabilities, ol 
dangers, of hopes. When he had got through, 
the Doctor looked him in the face steadily, as if 
he were saying. Is that all ? 

The father’s eyes fell. This was not all. There 
was something at the bottom of his soul which 
he could not bear to speak of, — nay, which, as 
often as it reared itself through the dark waves 
of unworded consciousness into the breathing air 
of thought, he trod down as the ruined angels 
tread down a lost soul trying to come up out of 
the seething sea of torture. Only this one daugh- 
ter ! No ! God never would have ordained such 
a thing. There was nothing ever heard of like it ; 
it could not be ; she was ill, — she would outgrow 
all these singularities ; he had had an aunt who 
was peculiar ; he had heard that hysteric girls 
ihowed the strangest forms of moral obliquity foi 
a time, but came right at last. She would change 
all at once, when her health got more firmly set- 
tled in the course of her growth. Are there nol 
tough buds that open into sweet flowers ? 


ELSIE VENNEIi. 


243 


there not fruits, which, while unripe, are not to be 
tasted or endured, which mature into the richest 
taste and fragrance? In God’s good time she 
Would come to her true nature ; her eyes would 
lose that frightful, cold glitter ; her lips would not 
eel so cold when she pressed them against hia 
cheek; and that faint birth-mark, her mother 
swooned when she first saw, would fade wholly 
out, — it was less marked, surely, now than it 
used to be ! 

So Dudley Venner felt, and would have thought, 
if he had let his thoughts breathe the air of his 
soul. But the Doctor read through words and 
thoughts and all into the father’s consciousness. 
There are states of mind which may be shared 
by two persons in presence of each other, which 
remain not only unworded, but unthoughted^ if O' 
such a word may be coined for our special need. 
Such a mutually interpenetrative consciousness 
there was between the father and the old physi- 
cian. By a common impulse, both of them rose 
in a mechanical way and went to the western 
window, where each started, as he saw the other’s 
ook directed towards the white stone which stood 
in the midst of the small plot ol green turf. 

The Doctor had, for a moment, forgotten him- 
lelf, but he looked up at the clouds, which were 
angry, and said, as if speaking of the weather, 

' It is dark now, but we hope it will clear up by- 
and-by. There are a great many more clouds 
than rains, and more rains than strokes of light- 


244 


ELSIE VENNER. 


ning, and more strokes of lightning than there are 
people killed. We must let this girl of ours have 
her way, as far as it is safe. Send away this 
woman she hates, quietly. Get her a foreigner 
for a governess, if you can, — one that can dance 
and sing and will teach her. In the house old 
Sophy will watch her best. Out of it you must 
trust her, I am afraid, — for she will not be fol- 
lowed round, and she is in less danger than you 
think. If she wanders at night, find her, if you 
can ; the woods are not absolutely safe. If she 
will be friendly with any young people, have 
them to see her, — young men, especially. She 
will not love any one easily, perhaps not at all; 
yet love would be more like to bring her right 
than anything else. If any young person seems 
in danger of falling in love with her, send him to 
me for counsel.’’ 

Dry, hard advice, but given from a kind heart, 
with a moist eye, and in tones which tried to be 
cheerful and were full of sympathy. This advice 
was the key to the more than indulgent treatment 
which, as we have seen, the girl had received 
from her father and all about her. The old Doc- 
tor often came in, in the kindest, most natural 
Bort of way, got into pleasant relations with El 
sie by always treating her in the same easy man- 
ner as at the great party, encouraging all her 
harmless fancies, and rarely reminding her that 
he was a professional adviser, except when she 
came out of her own accord, as in the talk they 


ELSIE VENNER. 


245 


had at the party, telling him of some wild trick 
Bhe had been playing. 

“ Let her go to the girls’ school, by all means,” 
said the Doctor, when she had begun to talk 
bout it. “ Possibly she may take to some of 
he girls oi’ of the teachers. Anything to interest 
her. Fiiendship, love, religion, — whatever will 
set her nature at work. We must have head- 
way on, or there will be no piloting her. Action 
first of all, and then we will see what to do 
with it.” 

So, when Cousin Richard came along, the 
Doctor, though he did not like his looks any too 
well, told her father to encourage his staying for 
a time. If she liked him, it was good ; if she 
only tolerated him, it was better than nothing. 

“ You know something about that nephew of 
yours, during these last years, I suppose ? ” the 
Doctor said. “ Looks as if he had seen life. 
Has a scar that was made by a sword-cut, and 
a white spot on the side of his neck that looks 
like a bullet-mark. I think he has been what 
tolks call a ‘ hard customer.’ ” 

Dudley Venner owned that he had heard little 
r nothing of him of late years. He had invited 
aimself, and of course it would not be decent 
not to receive him as a relative. He thought 
Elsie lather liked having him about the house 
fo2 a while. She was very capricious, — acted 
as if she fancied him one day and disliked him 
the next. He did not know, — but sometimes 


*46 ELSIE VENNER. 

thought that this nephew of his might take a sen 
ous liking to Elsie. What should he do about 
\t, if it turned out so ? 

The Doctor lifted his eyebrows a little. He 
thought there was no fear. Elsie was naturally 
w^hat they call a man-hater, and there was very 
little danger of any sudden passion springing up 
between two such young persons. I<et him stay 
awhile ; it gives het something to think about 
So he stayed awhile, as we have seen. 

The more Mr. Richard became acquainted 
with the family, — that is, with the two persons 
of whom it consisted, — the more favorably the 
idea of a permanent residence in the mansion- 
house seemed to impress him. The estate was 
large, — hundreds of acres, with woodlands and 
meadows of great value. The father and daugh- 
ter had been living quietly, and there could not 
be a doubt that the property which came through 
the Dudleys must have largely increased of late 
years. It was evident enough that they had an 
abundant income, from the way in which Elsie’s 
caprices were indulged. She had horses and car- 
riages to suit herself ; she sent to the great city 
for everything she wanted in the way of dress. 
Even her diamonds — and the young man knew 
something about these gems — must be of con- 
jjidorable value ; and yet she wore them care- 
lessly, as it pleased her fancy. She had precious 
Did laces, too, almost worth their weight in dia- 
monds, — laces which had been snatched from 


ELSIE VENNER. 


24 / 


altars in ancient Spanish cathedrals during the 
W'ars, and which it would not be safe to leave a 
duchess alone with for ten minutes. The old 
house was fat with the deposits of rich genera- 
tions which had gone before. The famous “ gold- 
en ” fire-set was a purchase of one of the family 
who had been in France during the Revolution, 
and must have come from a princely palace, if 
not from one of the royal residences. As for 
silver, the iron closet which had been made in the 
dining-room wall was running over with it : tea- 
kettles, coffee-pots, heavy-lidded tankards, chafing- 
dishes, punch-bowls, all that all the Dudleys had 
ever used, from the caudle-cup which used to be 
handed round the young mother’s chamber, and 
the porringer from which children scooped their 
bread-and-milk with spoons as solid as ingots, 
to that ominous vessel, on the upper shelf, far 
back in the dark, with a spout like a slender 
italic S, out of which the sick and dying, all 
along the last century, and since, had taken the 
last drops that passed their lips. Without being 
much of a scholar, Dick could see well enough, 
too, that the books in the library had been ordered 
from the great London houses, whose imprint 
they bore, by persons who knew what was best 
and meant to have it. A man does not require 
much learning to feel pretty sure, when he takes 
one of those solid, smooth, velvet-leaved quartos. 
Bay a Baskerville Addison, for instance, bound in 
•ed morocco, with a margin of gold as rich aa 


248 


ELSIE VENNER. 


the embroidery of a prince’s collar, as Vandyck 
drew it, — he need not know much to feel pretty 
sure that a score or two of shelves full of such 
books mean that it took a long purse^ as weL 
as a literary taste, to bring them together. 

To all these attractions the mind of thi^ 
thoughtful young gentleman may be said to have 
been fully open. He did not disguise from him- 
self, however, that there were a number of draw- 
backs in the way of his becoming established as 
the heir of the Dudley mansion-house and for- 
tune. In the first place, Cousin Elsie was, un- 
questionably, very piquant, very handsome, game 
as a hawk, and hard to please, which made her 
worth trying for. But then there was something 
about Cousin Elsie, — (the small, white scars 
began stinging, as he said this to himself, and he 
pushed his sleeve up to look at them,) — there 
was something about Cousin Elsie he couldn’t 
make out. What was the matter with her eyes, 
that they sucked your life out of you in that 
strange way ? What did she always wear a 
necklace for ? Had she some such love-token on 
her neck as the old Don’s revolver had left on 
his ? How safe would anybody feel to live with 
ner ? Besides, her father would last forever, if 
.le was left to himself. And he may take it 
into his head to marry again. That would be 
oleasant ! 

So talked Cousin Richard to himself, in the 
talm of the night and in the tranquillity of hia 


ELSIE VENIIER. 


249 


Dwn soul. There was much to be said on both 
sides. It was a balance to be struck after th^ 
two columns were added up. He struck the 
balance, ami came to the conclusion that he 
would fall in love with Elsie Vernier. 

The intelligent reader will not confound this 
matured and serious intention of falling in love 
with the young lady with that mere impulse of 
the moment before mentioned as an instance of 
making love. On the contrary, the moment Mr 
Richard had made up his mind that he should fall 
in love with Elsie, he began to be more reserved 
with her, and to try to make friends in other 
quarters. Sensible men, you know, care very 
little what a girFs present fancy is. The ques- 
tion is : Who manages her, and how can you get 
at that person or those persons ? Her foolish 
little sentiments are aU very well in their way ; 
but business is business, and we can’t stop for 
such trifles ^ The ol d political wire-puller^^ , i}^ver 
go near the man they want to gain, if they can 
help it they find out^jdio-his-. 
managers are, ^anTwork through them. Always 
handle any positively electrical body,^ wliether it 
\s charged with passion or power, with some non- 
conductor between you and it, not with your 
naked hands. — The above were some of the 
young gentleman’s working axioms ; and he pro- 
ceeded to act in accordance with them. 

He began by paying his court more assiduously 
to his uncle. It was not very nard to ingratiate 


250 


ELSIF VENNER. 


himself in that quarter ; for his manners were in- 
sinuating, and his precocious experience of life 
made him entertaining. The old neglected bil- 
liard-room was soon put in order, and Dick, who 
was a magnificent player, had a series of games 
with his uncle, in which, singularly enough, he 
was beaten, though his antagonist had been out 
of play for years. He evinced a profound interest 
in the family history, insisted on having the de- 
tails of its early alliances, and professed a great 
pride in it, which he had inherited from his father, 
who, though he had allied himself with the daugh- 
ter of an alien race, had yet chosen one with the 
real azure blood in her veins, as proud as if she 
had Castile and Aragon for her dower and the 
Cid for her grandpapa. He also asked a great 
fleal of advice, such as inexperienced young per- 
sons are in need of, and listened to it with due 
reverence. 

It is not very strange that Uncle Dudley took 
a kinder view of his nephew than the Judge, 
who thought he could read a questionable his- 
tory in his face, — or the old Doctor, who knew 
men’s temperaments and organizations pretty 
well, and had his prejudices about races, and 
could tell an old sword-cut and a bullet-mark 
in two seconds from a scar got by falling against 
the fender, or a mark left by king’s evil. He 
could not be expected to share our own preju 
dices ; for he had heard nothing of the wile 
south’s adventures, or his scamper over the Fam 


ELSIE VENNER. 


251 


pas at short notice. So, then, “ Richard Venner 
Esquire, guest of Dudley Venner, Esquire, at his 
ehgant mansion,” prolonged his visit until his 
presence became something like a matter of hab* 
it, and the neighbors began to think that the fine 
Did house would be illuminated before long for 

grand marriage. 

He had done pretty well with the father : the 
next thing was to gain over the nurse. Old So- 
phy was as cunning as a red fox or a gray wood- 
chuck. She had nothing in the world to do but 
to watch Elsie; she had nothing to care for but 
this girl and her father. She had never liked Dick 
too well ; for he used to make faces at her and 
tease her when he was a boy, and now he was a 
man there was something about him — she could 
not tell what — that made her suspicious of him. 
It was no small matter to get her over to his side. 

The jet-black Africans know that gold never 
looks so well as on the foil of their dark skins. 
Dick found in his trunk a string of gold beads, 
such as are manufactured in some of our cities, 
which he had brought from the gold region of 
Chili, — so he said, — for the express purpose of 
giving them to old Sophy. These Africans, too, 
have a perfect passion for gay-colored clothing* 
being condemned by Nature as it were, to a per 
pctual mourning-suit, they bve to enliven it with 
all sorts of variegated stuffs of sprightly patterns, 
aflame with red and yellow. The considerate 
young man had remembered this, too, and brought 
Uome for Sophy some handkerchiefs of rainbots 


252 


ELSIE VENNER. 


hues, which had been strangely overlooked till 
now, at the bottom of one of liis trunks. Old 
Sophy took his gifts, but kept her black eyes open 
and watched every movement of the y oung peo- 
ple all the more closely. It was through her tha 
the father had always known most of the actions 
and tendencies of his daughter. 

In the mean titne the strange adventure on The 
Mountain had brought the young master into new 
relations with Elsie. She had led him out of dan- 
ger ; perhaps saved him from death by the strange 
power she exerted. He was grateful, and yet 
shuddered at the recollection of the whole scene. 
In his dreams he was pursued by the glare of cold 
glittering eyes, — whether they were in the head 
of a woman or of a reptile he could not always 
tell, the images had so run together. But he 
could not help seeing that the eyes of the young 
girl had been often, very often, turned upon him 
when he had been looking away, and fell as his 
own glance met them. Helen Harley told him 
very plainly that this girl was thinking about him 
more than about her book. Hick Venner found 
she was getting more constant in her attendance 
at school. He learned, on inquiry, that there was 
a new master, a handsome young man. The 
handsome young man would not have liked the 
look that came over Hick’s face when he heard 
this fact mentioned, 

III short, everything was getting tangled up 
♦ogether, and there would be no chance of disen 
tangling the threads in this chapter. 


fflJBIE VENNER. 


«53 


CHAPTER XV. 

PHYSIOLOGICAL. 

Ip Master Bernard felt a natural gratitude to 
his young pupil for saving him from an imminent 
peril, he was in a state of infinite perplexity tc 
know why he should have needed such aid. He, 
an active, muscular, courageous, adventurous 
young fellow, with a stick in his hand, ready to 
hold down the Old Serpent himself, if he had 
come in his way, to stand still, staring into those 
two eyes, until they came up close to him, and 
the strange, terrible sound seemed to freeze him 
stiff where he stood, — what was the meaning of 
it ? Again, what was the influence this girl had 
seemingly exerted, under which the venomous 
creature had collapsed in such a sudden way ? 
Whether he had been awake or dreaming he did 
not feel quite sure. He knew he had gone up 
The Mountain, at any rate ; he knew he had 
come down The Mountain with the girl walking 
just before him ; — there was no forgetting her 
figure, as she walked on in silence, her braided 
Jocks falling a little, for want of the lost hair-pin 
perhaps, and looking like a wreathing coil of — 


254 


ELSIE VEKNEK. 


Shame on such fancies ! — to wrong that su- 
preme crowning gift of abounding Nature, a rush 
of shining black hair, which, shaken loose, w^oula 
cloud her all round, like Godiva, from brow to 
instep I He was sure he had sat down before the 
fissure or cave. He was sure that he was let. 
softly away from the place, and that it was Elsie 
who had led him. There was the hair-pin to sho\^ 
that so far it was not a dream. But between 
these recollections came a strange confusion ; and 
the more the master thought, the more he was 
perplexed to know whether she had waked him, 
sleeping, as he sat on the stone, from some fright- 
ful dream, such as may come in a very brief slum- 
ber, or whether she had bewitched him into a 
trance with those strange eyes of hers, or whether 
it was all true, and he must solve its problem as 
he best might. 

There was another recollection connected with 
this mountain adventure. As they approached 
the mansion-house, they met a young man, whom 
Mr. Bernard remembered having seen once at 
least before, and whom he had heard of as a 
cousin of the young girl. As Cousin Richard 
Venner, the person in question, passed them, he 
look the measure, so to speak, of Mr. Bernard, 
with a look so piercing, so exhausting, so prac- 
tised, so profoundly suspicious, that the young 
master felt in an instant that he had an enemy in 
this handsome youth, — an enemy, too, who wai 
like to be subtle and dangerous. 


ELSIE VENNER. 


255 


Mr. Bernard had made up his mind, that, come 
what might, enemy or no enemy, live or die, he 
Would solve the mystery of Elsie Venner, sooner 
or later. He was not a man to be frightened out 
of his resolution by a scowl, or a stiletto, or any 
unknown means of mischief, of which a whole 
armory was hinted at :n that passing look Dick 
Venner had given him. Indeed, like most adven- 
turous young persons, he found a land of charm 
in feeling that there might be some dangers in the 
way of his investigations. Some rumors which 
had reached him about the supposed suitor of 
Elsie Venner, who was thought to be a desperate 
kind of fellow, and whom some believed to be an 
unscrupulous adventurer, added a curious, roman- 
tic kind of interest to the course of physiological 
and psychological inquiries he was about insti- 
tuting. 

The afternoon on The Mountain was still up- 
permost in his mind. Of course he knew the 
common stories about fascination. He had once 
been himself an eye-witness of the charming of a 
small bird by one of our common harmless ser- 
pents. Whether a human being could be reached 
by this subtile agency, he had been skeptical, not- 
withstanding the mysterious relation generally felt 
to exist between man and this creature, “ cursed 
above all cattle and above every beast of the 
field,’^ — a relation which some interpret as the 
fruit of the curse, and others hold to be so in- 
itinctive that this animal has been for that reasc^n 


256 


ELSIE VENXER. 


adopted as the natural symbol of evil. There waa 
another solution, however, supplied him by hia 
professional reading. The curious work of Mr. 
Braid of Manchester had made him familiar with 
the phenomena of a state allied to that produced 
by animal magnetism, and called by that writer 
by the name of hypnotism. He found, by refer* 
ring to his note-book, the statement was, that, by 
fixing the eyes on a bright object so placed as to 
produce a strain upon the eyes and eyelids, and to 
maintain a steady fixed stare ^ there comes on in a 
few seconds a very singular condition, character- 
ized by muscular rigidity and inability to move^ 
with a strange exaltation of most of the senses, and 
generally a closure of the eyelids, — this condition 
being followed by torpor. 

Now this statement of Mr. Braid’s, well known 
to the scientific world, and the truth of which had 
been confirmed by Mr. Bernard in certain experi- 
ments he had instituted, as it has been by many 
other experimenters, went far to explain the 
strange impressions, of which, waking or dream- 
ing, he had certainly been the subject. His ner- 
vous system had been in a high state of exalta- 
tion at the time. He remembered how the little 
noises that made rings of sound in the silence of 
the woods, like pebbles dropped in still waters, 
had reached his inner consciousness. He remem- 
bered that singular sensation in the roots of the 
Dair, when he came on the traces of the giii’a 
bresence, reminding him of a line in a certain 


ELSIE VEl^NER. 


257 


poem which he haa read lately with a new and 
peculiar interest. He even recalled a curious evh 
dence of exalted sensibility and irritability, in the 
twitching of the minute muscles of the internaa 
ear at every unexpected sound, producing an odd 
little snap in the middle of the head, which proved 
to him that he was getting very nervous. 

The next thing was to find out whether it were 
possible that the venomous creature’s eyes should 
have served the purpose of Mr. Braid’s “ bright 
object ” held very close to the person experi- 
mented on, or whether they had any special 
power which could be made the subject of ex- 
act observation. 

For this purpose Mr. Bernard considered it ne- 
cessary to get a live crotalus or two into his pos- 
session, if this were possible. On inquiry, he 
found that there was a certain family living far 
up the mountain -side, not a mile from the ledge, 
the members of which were said to have taken 
these creatures occasionally, and not to be in any 
danger, or at least in any fear, of being injured 
by them. He applied to these people, and offered 
a reward sufficient to set them at work to caj)- 
ture some of these animals, if such a thing were 
possible. 

A few days after this, a dark, gypsy-looking 
woman presented nerself at his door. She held 
\ap her apron as if it contained somelhing pro 
cious in the bag she made with it. 

17 


VOL. I. 


258 


ELSIE TENNER. 


“ YVanted some rattlers,” said the woman 

Here they be.” 

She opened her apron and showed a coil of 
rattlesnakes lying very peaceably in its fold 
They lifted their heads up, as if they wanted to 
see what was going on, but showed no sign oi 
anger. 

“ Are you crazy ? ” said Mr. Bernard. “ You’re 
dead in an hour, if one of those creatures strikes 
you ! ” 

He drew back a little, as he spoke ; it might be 
simple disgust ; it might be fear ; it might be 
what we call antipathy, which is different from 
either, and which will sometimes show itself in 
paleness, and even faintness, produced by objects 
perfectly harmless and not in themselves offensive 
to any sense. 

“ Lord bless you,” said the woman, “ rattlers 
never touches our folks. I’d jest ’z lieves handle 
them creators as so many stripdd snakes.” 

So saying, she put their heads down with her 
hand, and packed them together in her apron as 
If they had been bits of cart-rope. 

Mr. Bernard had never heard of the power, or, 
at least, the belief in the possession of a power 
by certain persons, which enables them to handle 
these frightful reptiles with perfect impunity 
The fact, however, is well known to others, and 
more especially to a very distinguished Professoi 
Bi one of the leading institutions of the great 
city of the land, whose experiences in the neigh 


ELSIE VENXER. 


259 


oorhood of Graylock, as he will doubtless inform 
the curious, were very much like those of the 
young master. 

Mr. Bernard had a wired cage ready for his: 
formidable captives, and studied their habits and 
expression with a strange sort of interest. What 
did the Creator mean to signify, when he made 
3uch shapes of horror, and, as if he had doubly 
cursed this envenomed wretch, had set a mark 
upon him and sent him forth, the Cain of the 
brotherhood of serpents ? It was a very curious 
fact that tbe first train of thoughts Mr. Bernard’s 
small menagerie suggested to him was the grave, 
though somewhat worn, subject of the origin of 
evil. There is now to be seen in a tall glass 
jar, in the Museum of Comparative Anatomy at 
Cantabridge in the territory of the Massachusetts, 
a huge crotalus^ of a species which grows to more 
frightful dimensions than our own, under the hot- 
ter skies of South America. Look at it, ye who 
would know what is the tolerance, the freedom 
from prejudice, which can suffer such an incarna- 
tion of all that is devilish to lie unharmed in the 
cradle of Nature ! Learn, too, that there are 
many things in this world which we are warned 
to shun, and are even suffered to slay, if need be, 
but which we must not hate, unless we would 
hate what God loves and cares for. 

Whatever fascination the creature might exercise 
\ii his native haunts, Mr. Bernard found himself 
Qot in the least nervous or allected in any way 


*60 


ELSIE VENNER. 


while looking at his caged reptiles. When theii 
cage was shaken, they would lift their heads and 
spring their rattles ; but the sound was by no 
means so formidable to listen to as when it re- 
verberated among the chasms of the echoing 
rocks. The expression of the creatures was 
watchful, still, grave, passionless, fate-like, sug- 
gesting a cold malignity which seemed to be wait- 
ing for its opportunity. Their awful, deep-cut 
mouths were sternly closed over the long hollov/ 
fangs which rested their roots against the swollen 
poison-gland, where the venom had been hoard- 
ing up ever since the last stroke had emptied it. 
They never winked, for ophidians have no mov- 
able eyelids, but kept up that awful fixed stare 
which made the two unwinking' gladiators the 
survivors of twenty pairs matched by one of the 
Roman Emperors, as Pliny tells us, in his “ Nat- 
ural History.” Their eyes did not flash, but shone 
with a cold still light. They were of a pale- 
golden or sti'aw color, horrible to look into, with 
their stony calmness, their pitiless indifference, 
hardly enlivened by the almost imperceptible 
vertical slit of the pupil, through which Death 
seemed to be looking out like the archer behind 
the long narrow loop-hole in a blank turret- wall. 
On the whole, the caged reptiles, horrid as they 
weii;, hardly matched his recollections of what 
ne had seen or dreamed he saw at the cavern. 
These looked dangerous enough, but yet quiet 
A. treacherous stillness, however, — as the unfo? 


ELSIE VENNER. 


26 i 


hinate ISjw York physician found, when he put 
his foot out to wake up the torpid creature, 
and instantly the fang flashed through his boot, 
carrying the poison into his blood, and death 
with it. 

IVIr. Bernard kept these strange creatures, and 
watched all their habits with a natural curiosity. 
In any collection of animals the venomous beasts 
are looked at with the greatest interest, just as 
the greatest villains are most run after by the un- 
known public. Nobody troubles himself for a 
common striped snake or a petty thief, but a cobra 
or a wife-killer is a centre of attraction to all eyes. 
These captives did very little to earn their living, 
but, on the other hand, their living was not expen- 
sive, their diet being nothing but air, au natureL 
Months and months these creatures will live and 
seem to thrive well enough, as any showman who 
has them in his menagerie will testify, though 
they never touch anything to eat or drink. 

In the mean time Mr. Bernard had become very 
curious about a class of subjects not treated of 
in any detail in those text-books accessible in 
most country-towns, to the exclusion of the more 
special treatises, and especially of the rare and 
ancient works found on the shelves of the larger 
city-libraries. He was on a visit to old Dr. Kit- 
tredge one day, having been asked by him to call 
in for a few moments as soon as convenient. 
The Doctor smiled good-humoredly when he asked 
him if he had an extensive collection of medica. 
works. 


262 


ELSIE VENOTiTK. 


“ Why, no,” said the old Doctor, “ I haven’t 
got a great many printed books ; and what I 
have I don’t read quite as ofeen as I might, I’m 
afraid. I read and studied in the time of it, 
when I was in the midst of the young men who 
were all at work with their books ; but it’s a 
mighty hard matter, when you go off alone into 
the country, to keep up with all that’s going on 
in the Societies and the Colleges. I’ll tell you, 
though, Mr. Langdon, when a man that’s once 
started right lives among sick folks for five-and- 
thirty years, as I’ve done, if he hasn’t got a library 
of five-and-thirty volumes bound up in his head 
at the end of that time, he’d better stop driving 
round and sell his horse and sulky. I know the 
bigger part of the families within a dozen miles’ 
ride. I know the families that have a way of 
living through everything, and I know the other 
set that have the trick of dying without any kind 
of reason for it. I know the years when the 
fevers and dysenteries are in earnest, and when 
they’re only making believe. I know the folks 
that think they’re dying as soon as they’re sick, 
and the folks that never find out they’re sick till 
they’re dead. I don’t want to undervalue your 
science, Mr. Langdon. There are things I never 
learned, because they came in after my dav, and 
I am very glad to send my patients to those that 
do know them, when I am at fault ; but I know 
these people about here, fathers and mothers, and 
children and grandchildren, so as all the sciencs 


ELSIE VENNER. 


263 


bi the world can’t know them, without it takes 
time about it, and sees them grow up and grow 
old, and how the wear and tear of life comes to 
them. You can’t tell a horse by driving him 
once, Mr. Langdon, nor a patient by talking half 
an hour with him.” 

“ Do you know much about the Venner fam- 
ily ? ” said Mr. Bernard, in a natural way enough, 
the Doctor’s talk having suggested the question. 

The Doctor lifted his head with his accustomed 
movement, so as to command the young man 
through his spectacles. 

“ I know all the families of this piace and its 
neighborhood,” he answered. 

“We have the young lady studying with us at 
the Institute,” said Mr. Bernard. 

“ I know it,” the Doctor answered. “ Is she a 
good scholar ? ” 

All this time the Doctor’s eyes were fixed stead- 
ily on Mr. Bernard, looking through the glasses. 

“ She is a good scholar enough, but I don’t 
know what to make of her. Sometimes I think 
she is a little out of her head. Her father, I be- 
lieve, is sensible enough ; — what sort of a woman 
was her mother. Doctor? — I suppose of course 
■’ou remember all about ner? ” 

“ Yes, I knew her mother. She was a very 
ovely young woman.” — The Doctor put his 
hand to his forehead and drew a long breath. — 
“ What is there you notice out of the way about 
Elsie Venner ? ” 


m 


ELSIE VENNER. 


“ A good many things/’ the master answered 
^ She shuns all the other girls. She is getting a 
strange influence over my fellow-teacher, a young 
lady, — you know Miss Helen Darley, perhaps? 
I am afraid this girl will kill her. I never saw or 
heard of anything like it, in prose at least ; — do you 
n'-member much of Coleridge’s Poems, Doctor ? ” 
The good old Doctor had to plead a negative. 

“ Well, no matter. Elsie would have been 
burned for a witch in old times. I have seen 
the girl look at Miss Darley when she had not 
the least idea of it, and all at once I would see 
her grow pale and moist, and sigh, and move 
round uneasily, and turn towards Elsie, and per- 
haps get up and go to her, or else have slight 
spasmodic movements that looked like hysterics ; 
— do you believe in the evil eye. Doctor ? ” 

“ Mr. Langdon,” the Doctor said, solemnly, 
“ there are strange things about Elsie Venner, — 
very strange things. This was what I wanted to 
speak to you about. Let me advise you all to be 
very patient with the girl, but also very careful. 
Her love is not to be desired, and ” — he spoke 
in a lower tone — “her hate is to be dreaded 
Do you think she has any special fancy for any 
body else in the school besides Miss Darley ? ” 
Mr. Bernard could not stand the old Doctor’s 
spectacled eyes without betraying a little of the 
feeling natural to a young man to whom a home 
question involving a possible sentiment is pu* 
suddenly. 


ELSIE VENNER. 


265 


“ I have suspected,” he said, — “I haVe had a 

jdnd of feeling — that she Well, come, 

Doctor, — I don’t know that there’s any use in 
disguising the matter, — I have thought Elsie 
Venner had rather a fancy for somebody else, — 
I mean myself.” 

There was something so becoming in the blush 
with which the young man made this confession, 
and so manly, too, in the tone with which he 
spoke, so remote from any shallow vanity, such 
as young men who are incapable of love are apt 
to feel, when some loose tendril of a woman’s 
fancy which a chance wind has blown against 
them twines about them for the want of anything 
better, that the old Doctor looked at him admir- 
ingly, and could not help thinking that it was no 
wonder any young girl should be pleased with him. 

“ You are a man of nerve, Mr. Langdon ? ” said 
the Doctor. 

“ I thought so till very lately,” he replied. “ I 
am not easily frightened, but I don’t know but 
I might be bewitched or magnetized, or whatever 
it is when one is tied up and cannot move. ] 
think I can find nerve enough, however, if there 
is any special use you want to put it to.” 

“Let me ask you one more question, Mr 
Langdon. Do you find yourself disposed to take 
a special interest in Elsie, — to fall in love with 
her, in a word? Pardon me, for I do not ask 
from curiosity, but a much more serious motive.” 

“ Elsie interests me,” said tne young man, “ in* 


£66 


ELSIE VENNER. 


terests me strangely. She has a wild flavor in 
her character which is wholly different from that 
of any human creature I ever saw She has 
marks of genius, — poetic or dramatic, — I hardly 
know which. She read a passage from Keats’s 
‘ Lamia ’ the other day, in the school-room, in 
such a way that I declare to you I thought somo 
of the girls would faint or go into fits. Miss Dar 
ley got up and left the room, trembling all over. 
Then I pity her, she is so lonely. The girls are 
afraid of her, and she seems to have either a dis- 
like or a fear of them. They have all sorts of 
painful stories about her. They give her a name 
which no human creature ought to bear. They 
say she hides a mark on her neck by always 
wearing a necklace. She is very graceful, you 
know, and they will have it that she can twist 
herself into all sorts of shapes, or tie herself in a 
knot, if she wants to. There is not one of them 
that will look her in the eyes. I pity the poor 
girl ; but. Doctor, I do not love her. I would risk 
my life for her, if it would do her any good, but 
it would be in cold blood. If her hand touches 
mine, it is not a thrill of passion I feel running 
through me, but a very different emotion. Oh, 
Doctor! there must be something in that creat- 
ure’s blood which has killed the humanity in her. 
God only knows the cause that has blighted such 
a soul in so beautiful a body ! No, Doctor, I do 
not love the girl.” 

“ Mr. Langdon,” said the Doctor, “ you are 


ELSIE VENNEE. 


267 


young, and I am old. Let me talk to you with 
an old man’s privilege, as an adviser. You have 
come to this country-town without suspicion, and 
you are moving in the midst of perils. There 
are things which I must not tell you now ; but I 
may warn you. Keep your eyes open and yout 
heart shut. If, through pitying that girl, you 
ever come to love her, you are lost. If you deal 
carelessly with her, beware! This is not all. 
There are other eyes on you beside Elsie Ven- 
ner’s. — Do you go armed ? ” 

“ I do ! ” said Mr. Bernard, — and he “ put his 
hands up ” in the shape of fists, in such a way as 
to show that he was master of the natural weap- 
ons at any rate. 

The Doctor could not help smiling. But his 
lace fell in an instant. 

“ You may want something more than those 
lools to work with. Come with me into my 
sanctum.” 

The Doctor led Mr. Bernard into a small room 
opening out of the study. It was a place such 
as anybody but a medical man would shiver to 
enter. There was the usual tail box \^dth its 
bleached, rattling tenant ; there were jars in rows 
where “ interesting cases ” outlived the grief of 
widows and heirs in alcoholic immortality, — foi 
Vour “ preparation-jar ” is the true manumentum 
wre perennius ” ; there were various semipossibil- 
ities of minute dimensions and unpromising de. 
eV>pments; there were shining instruments of 


e68 


ELSIE VENNER. 


evil aspect, and grim plates on the walls, and on 
one shelf by itself, accursed and apart, coiled in 
a long cylinder of spirit, a huge crotalus^ rough- 
scaled, flat-headed, variegated with dull bands, 
one of which partially encircled the neck like a 
collar, — an awful wretch to look upon, with 
murder written all over him in horrid hieroglyph- 
ics. Mr. Bernard’s look was riveted on this creat- 
ure, — not fascinated certainly, for its eyes looked 
like white beads, being clouded by the action of 
the spirits in which it had been long kept, — but 
fixed by some indefinite sense of the renewal of 
a previous impression ; — everybody knows the 
feeling, with its suggestion of some past state of 
existence. There was a scrap of paper on the 
jar, with something written on it. He was reach- 
ing up to read it when the Doctor touched him 
.ightly. 

“ Look here, Mr Langdon ! ” he said, with a 
certain vivacity of manner, as if wishing to caL 
away his attention, — “ this is my armory.” 

The Doctor threw open the door of a small 
cabinet, where were disposed in artistic patterns 
various weapons of offence and defence, — for he 
was a virtuoso in his way, and by the side of the 
implements of the art of healing had pleased him- 
self with displaying a collection of those other 
instruments, the use of which renders the first 
necessary. 

“ See which of these weapons you would like 
ftest to carry about you,” said the Doctor. 


ELSIE VENNER. 


269 


Mr. Bernard laughed, and looked at the Doc- 
tor as if he half doubted whether he was in 
earnest. 

“ This looks dangerous enough,” he said, — 
“ for the man who carries it, at least.” 

He took down one of the prohibited Spanish 
daggers or knives which a traveller may occa- 
sionally get hold of and smuggle out of the 
country. The blade was broad, trowel-like, but 
the point drawn out several inches, so as to look 
like a skewer. 

“ This must be a jealous bull-fighter’s weapon,” 
he said, and put it back in its place. 

Then he took down an ancient-looking broad- 
bladed dagger, with a complex aspect about it, 
as if it had some kind of mechanism connected 
with it. 

“ Take care ! ” said the Doctor ; “ there is a 
trick to that dagger.” 

He took it and touched a spring. The dagger 
split suddenly into three blades, as when one 
separates the forefinger and the ring-finger from 
the middle one. The outside blades were sharp 
on their outer edge. The stab was to be made 
tvilh the dagger shut, then the spring touched 
and the split blades withdrawn. 

Mr. Bernard replaced it, saying, that it would 
have served for side-arm to old Suwarrow, who 
told his men to work their bayonets back and 
forward when they pinned a Turk, but to 
wriggle them about in the wound when thej 
stabbed a Frenchman. 


170 


ELSIE VENNER. 


Here,” said the Doctor, “ this is the thing 
you want.” 

He took down a much more modern and fa- 
miliar implement, — a small, beautifully finished 
revolver. 

“ I want you to carry this,” he said ; “ and 
more than that, I want you to practise with it 
often, as for amusement, but so that it may be 
seen and understood that you are apt to have a 
pistol about you. Pistol-shooting is pleasant 
sport enough, and there is no reason why you 
should not practise it lilie other young fellows. 
And now,” the Doctor said, “ I have one other 
weapon to give you.” 

He took a small piece of parchment and shook 
a white powder into it from one of his medicine- 
jars. The jar was marked with the name of a 
mineral salt, of a nature to have been serviceable 
in case of sudden illness in the time of the Bor- 
gias. The Doctor folded the parchment carefully 
and marked the Latin name of the powder upon 
it. 

“ Here,” he said, handing it to Mr. Bernard, — 
you see what it is, and you know what service 
it can render. Keep these two protectors about 
your person day and night ; they will not harm 
you, and you may want one or the other or both 
before you think of it.” 

Mr. Bernard thought it was very odd, and not 
very old-gentlemanlike, to be fitting him out fo 
treason, stratagem, and spoils, in this way 


ELSIE VENNER. 


271 


There was no harm, however, in carrying a 
doctor’s powder in his pocket, or in amusing 
himself with shooting at a mark, as he had often 
done before. If the old gentleman had these fan- 
cies, it was as well to humor him. So he thanked 
old Doctor Kittredge, and shook his hand warmly 
as he left him. 

“ The fellow’s hand did not tremble, nor his 
color change,” the Doctor said, as he watched 
him walking away. He is one of the right 
sort.” 


272 


ELSIE TENNER 


CHAPTER XVL 

EPISTOLARY. 

Mr. Langdon to the Professor. 

My dear Professor, — 

You were kind enough to promise me that you 
would assist me in any professional or scientific 
investigations in which I might become engaged 
I have of late become deeply interested in a class 
of subjects which present peculiar difficulty, and 
I must exercise the privilege of questioning you 
on some points upon which I desire information 
I cannot otherwise obtain. I would not trouble 
you, if I could find any person or books compe 
tent to enlighten me on some of these singula* 
matters which have so excited me. The leading 
doctor here is a shrewd, sensible man, but not 
versed in the curiosities of medical literature. 

I proceed, with your leave, to ask a considera- 
ble number of questions, — hoping to get answers 
to some of them, at least. 

Is there any evidence that human beings can 
be infected or wrought upon by poisons, or other- 
wise, so that they shall manifest any of the pecu- 
iarities belonging to beings of a lower nature^ 


ELSIE VENNER. 


278 


Can such peculiarities be transmitted by inheri 
tance? Is there anything to countenance the 
stories, long and widely current, about the “ evil 
eye ” ? or is it a mere fancy that such a powei 
belongs to any human being? Have you any 
personal experience as to the power of fasci- 
nation said to be exercised by certain animals? 
What can you make of those circumstantial 
statements we have seen in the papers, of chil- 
dren forming mysterious friendships with ophid- 
ians of different species, sharing their food with 
them, and seeming to be under some subtile in 
fluence exercised by those creatures ? Have you 
read, critically, Coleridge’s poem of “ Christabel,” 
and Keats’s “ Lamia ” ? If so, can you under- 
stand them, or find any physiological foundation 
for the story of either ? 

There is another set of questions of a different 
nature I should like to ask, but it is hardly fair to 
put so many on a single sheet. There is one, 
however, you must answer. Do you think there 
may be predispositions, inherited or ingrafted, 
but at any rate constitutional, which shall take 
out certain apparently voluntary determinations 
from the control of the will, and leave them as 
free from moral responsibility as the instincts of 
the lower animals ? Do you not think there may 
l>e a crime which is not a sin ? 

Pardon me, my dear Sir, for troubling you witn 
Buch a list of notes of interrogation. There are 
tome very strange tnings going on here in this 

roL. 1. 18 


274 


ELSIE VENNER. 


place, country-town as it is. Country-life is apt 
to be dull ; but when it once gets going, it beats 
the city hollow, because it gives its whole mind 
to what it is about. These rural sinners make 
teiiible work with the middle of the Decalogue, 
v/hen they get started. However, I hope I shall 
live through my year’s school-keeping without 
catastrophes, though there are queer doings about 
me which puzzle me and might scare some peo- 
ple. If anything should happen, you will be one 
of the first to hear of it, no doubt. But I trust 
not to help out the editors of the “ Rockland 
Weekly Universe” with an obituary of the late 
lamented, who signed himself in life 
Your friend and pupil, 

Bernard C. Langdon, 


The Professor to Mr, Langdon, 

My dear Mr. Langdon, — 

I DO not wonder that you find no answer from 
your country friends to the curious questions you 
put. They belong to that middle region between 
science and poetry which sensible men, as they 
are called, are very shy of meddling with. Some 
people think that truth and gold are always to be 
washed for; but the wiser sort are of opinion, 
that, unless there are so many grains to the peck 
of sand or nonsense respectively, it does not pay 
to wash for either, so long as one can find any 
thing else to do. I don’t doubt there is som9 


ELSIE VENNER. 


275 


truth in the phenomena of animal magnetism, 
foi instance ; but when you ask me to cradle 
for it, I tell you that the hysteric girls cheat so, 
and the professionals are such a set of pickpock- 
ets, that I can do something better than hunt foi 
the grains of truth among their 4i'icks and lies. 
Do you remember what 1 used to say in my 
lectures ? — or were you asleep just then, or cut- 
ting your initials on the rail? (You see I can 
ask questions, my young friend.) Leverage is 
everything, — was what I used to say ; — don’t 
begin to pry till you have got the long arm on 
your side. 

To please you, and satisfy your doubts as far 
as possible, I have looked into the old books, — 
into Schencldus and Turner and Kenelm Digby 
and the rest, where I have found plenty of curious 
stories which you must take for what they are 
^vorth. 

Your first question I can answer in the affirma- 
tive upon pretty good authority. Mizaldus tells, 
in his “ Memorabilia,” the well-known story of the 
girl fed on poisons, who was sent by the king of 
the Indies to Alexander the Great. “ When 
Aristotle saw her eyes s'parkling and snapping like 
\hose of serpents^ he said, ‘ Look out for yourself, 
Alexander! this is a dangerous companion for 
you 1 ’ ” — and sure enough, the young lady proved 
io be a very unsafe person to her friends. Carda- 
aus gets a story from Avicenna, of a certain man 
Oit by a serpent, who recovered of his bite, the 


276 


ELSIE VENNER. 


snake dying therefrom. This man afterwards hac 
a daughter whom venomous serpents could not 
harm, though she had a fatal power over them, 

I suppose you may remember the statements of 
old authors about lycanthropy^ the disease in which 
men took on the nature and aspect of wolves. 
Aetius and Paulus, both men of authority, de- 
scribe it. Altomaris gives a horrid case; and 
Fincelius mentions one occurring as late as 1541, 
the subject of which was captured, still insisting 
that he was a wolf only that the hair of his hide 
was turned in! Versipelles^ it may be remembered, 
was the Latin name for these “ were-wolves.” 

As for the cases where rabid persons have 
barked and bit like dogs, there are plenty of such 
on record. 

More singular, or at least more rare, is the ac- 
count given by Andreas Baccius, of a man who 
was struck in the hand by a cock, with his beak, 
and who died on the third day thereafter, looking 
for all the world like a fighting-cock^ to the great 
horror of the spectators. 

As to impressions transmitted at a very early 
period of existence^ every one knows the story of 
King James’s fear of a naked sword, and the wa 
it is accounted for. Sir Kenelm Digby says, — 
** I remember when he dubbed me Knight, in the 
ceremony of putting the point of a naked sword 
apon my shoulder, he could not endure to look 
upon it, but turned his face another way inso» 
much, that, in lieu of touching my shoulder, h* 


ELSIE VENNER. 


27 '; 


had almost thrust the point into my eyes, had 
not the Duke of Buckingham guided his hand 
aright.” It is he, too, who tells the story of the 
%iulberry mark upon the neck of a certain lady of 
high condition, which “ every year, in mulberry 
season, did swell, grow big, and itch.” And Gaf* 
farel mentions the case of a girl born with the 
figure of a fish on one of her limbs, of which the 
wonder was, that, when the girl did eat fish, this 
mark put her to sensible pain. But there is no 
end to cases of this kind, and I could give some 
of recent date, if necessary, lending a certain 
plausibility at least to the doctrine of transmitted 
impressions. 

I never saw a distinct case of evil eye^ though 1 
have seen eyes so bad that they might produce 
strange effects on very sensitive natures. But the 
belief in it under various names, fascination, jet- 
tatura^ etc., is so permanent and universal, from 
Egypt to Italy, and from the days of Solomon to 
those of Ferdinand of Naples, that there must be 
some peculiarity., to say the least, on which the 
opinion is based. There is very strong evidence 
that some such power is exercised by certain of 
the lower animals. Thus, it is stated on good 
authority that “almost every animal becomes 
panic-struck at the sight of the rattlesnake, and 
seems at once deprived of the power of mo- 
tion, or the exercise of its usual instinct of self- 
preteervation.” Other serpents seem to share this 
30wer of fascination, as the Cobra and the Bu> 


f78 


ELSIE VENNER. 


cephalus Capensis, Some think that it is nothing 
but fright; others attribute it to the 

“ strange po-wers that lie 
Within the magic circle of the eye,” — 

as Churchill said, speaking of Garrick. 

You ask me about those mysterious and fright 
ful intimacies between children and serpents, of 
which so many instances have been recorded. 1 
am sure I cannot tell what to make of them. I 
have seen several such accounts in recent papers, 
but here is one published in the seventeenth cen- 
tury, which is as striking as any of the more mod- 
ern ones : — 

“ Mr. Herbert Jones of Monmouth^ when he was 
a little Boy, was used to eat his Milk in a Gar- 
den in the Morning, and was no sooner there, but 
a large Snake always came, and eat out of the 
Dish with him, and did so for a considerable time, 
till one Morning, he striking the Snake on the 
Head, it hissed at him. Upon which he told his 
Mother that the Baby (for so he call’d it) cry’d 
Hiss at him. His Mother had it kill’d, which oc- 
casioned him a great Fit of Sickness^ and ’twaa 
thought would have dy’d, but did recover.” 

There was likewise one “ William Writtle^ con- 
d smned at Maidston Assizes for a double murder 
told a Minister that was with him after he was 
condemned, that his mother told him, that when 
he was a Child, (here crept always to him a 
Snake, wherever she laid him. Sometimes she 


ELSIE VENNER. 


279 


ivould con vey him up Stairs, and leave him ncvei 
BO little, she should be sure to find a Snake in the 
Cradle with him, but never perceived it did him 
any harm.’’ 

One of the most striking alleged facts con 
nected with the mysterious relation existing be- 
tween the serpent and the human species is the 
mfluence which the poison of the Crotalus^ taken 
internally, seemed to produce over the moral fac- 
ulties, in the experiments instituted^by Dr. Hering 
at Surinam. There is something frightful in the 
disposition of certain ophidians, as the whip- 
snake, which darts at the eyes of cattle without 
any apparent provocation or other motive. It is 
natural enough that the evil principle should have 
been represented in the form of a serpent, but it 
is strange to think of introducing it into a human 
being like cow-pox by vaccination. 

You know all about the Psylli, or ancient ser- 
pent-tamers, I suppose. Savary gives an account 
of the modern serpent-tamers in his “ Letters on 
Egypt.” These modern jugglers are in the habit 
of making the venomous Naja counterfeit death, 
lying out straight and stiff, changing it into a 
rod, as the ancient magicians did with their ser- 
pents, (probably the same animal,) in the time of 
Moses. 

I am afraid I cannot throw much light on 
‘ Uhristabel ” or “ Lamia ” by any criticism I can 
offer. Geraldine, in the former, seems to be sim» 
oiy a malignant witch-woman^ with the evil eye 


280 


ELSIE VENNER. 


but with no absolute ophidian relationship. La 
mia is a serpent transformed by magic into a 
woman. The idea of both is mythological, and 
not in any sense physiological. Some women 
unquestionably suggest the image of serpents* 
men rarely or never. I have been struck, like 
many others, with the ophidian head and eye of 
the famous Rachel. 

Your question about inherited predispositions, 
as limiting the sphere of the will, and, conse- 
quently, of moral accountability, opens a very 
wide range of speculation. I can give you only 
a brief abstract of my own opinions on this deli- 
cate and difficult subject. Crime and sin, being 
the preserves of two great organized interests, 
have been guarded against all reforming poachers 
with as great jealousy as the Royal Forests. It 
is so easy to hang a troublesome fellow ! It is so 
much simpler to consign a soul to perdition, or 
say masses, for money, to save it, than to take 
the blame on ourselves for letting it grow up in 
neglect and run to ruin for want of humanizing 
influences! They hung poor, crazy Bellingham 
for shooting Mr. Perceval. The ordinary of New- 
gate preached to women who were to swing at 
Tyburn for a petty theft as if they were worse 
than other people, — just as though he would not 
have been a pickpocket or shoplifter, himself, if 
he had been born in a den of thieves and bred up 
to steal or starve ! The English law never began 
•o get hold of the idea that a crime was not necea 


ELSIE VENDER. 


‘281 


Barily a sin, tUl Hadfield, who thought he was the 
Saviour of mankind, was tried for shooting at 
George the Third ; — lucky for him that he did 
not hit his Majesty ! 

It is , very singular that we recognize aU the 
bodily defects that unfit a man for military ser- 
vice, and all the intellectual ones that limit his 
range of thought, but always talk at him as if al 
his moral powers were perfect. I suppose we 
must punish evil-doers as we extirpate vermin; 
but I don’t know that we have any more right to 
judge them than we have to judge rats and mice, 
which are just as good as cats and weasels, though 
we think it necessary to treat them as criminals. 

The limitations of human responsibility have 
never been properly studied, unless it be by the 
phrenologists. You know from my lectures that 
I consider phrenology, as taught, a pseudo-science, 
and not a branch of positive knowledge ; but, for 
all that, we owe it an immense debt. It has 
melted the world’s conscience in its crucible, and 
cast it in a new mould, with features less like 
those of Moloch and more like those of humanity. 
If it has failed to demonstrate its system of spe- 
cial correspondences, it has proved that there are 
6jced relations between organization and mind 
and character. It has brought out that great 
doctrine of moral insanity, which has done more 
to make men charitable and soften legal and the- 
ological barbarism than any one doctrine that I 
can think of since the message of peace and 
KOod-wiU to men. 


282 


ELSIE VENNER. 


Automatic action in the moral world ; the rejlea 
movement which seems to be self-determination, 
and has been hanged and howled at as such 
(metaphorically) for nobody knows how many 
centuries : until somebody shall study this as 
Marshall Hall has studied reflex nervous action 
in the bodily system, I would not give much for 
men’s judgments of each others’ characters. Shut 
up the robber and the defaulter, we must. But 
what if your oldest boy had been stolen from his 
cradle and bred in a North-Street cellar? What 
if you are drinking a little too much wine and 
smoking a little too much tobacco, and your son 
takes after you, and so your poor grandson’s brain 
being a little injured in physical texture, he loses 
the fine moral sense on which you pride yourself, 
and doesn’t see the diflerence between signing 
another man’s name to a draft and his own ? 

I suppose the study of automatic action in the 
moral world (you see what I mean through the 
apparent contradiction of terms) may be a danger- 
ous one in the view of many people. It is liable 
to abuse, no doubt. People are always glad to 
get hold of anything which limits their responsi- 
bility. But remember that our moral estimates 
come down to us from ancestors who hanged 
children for stealing forty shillings’ worth, and 
Bent their souls to perdition for the sin of being 
born, — who punished the unfortunate families 
of suicides, and in their eagerness for justice exe- 
cuted one innocent person every three years, 05 
the average, as Sir James Mackintosh tells us 


ET.SIE VENNER 


283 


I do not know in what shape the practical 
question may present itself to you ; but I will 
tell you my rule in life, and I think you will find 
it a good one. Treat bad men exactly as if they 
were insane. They are insane^ out of health, 
morally. Reason, which is food to sound minds, 
is not tolerated, still less assimilated, unless ad- 
ministered with the greatest caution ; perhaps, not 
at all. Avoid collision with them, so far as you 
honorably can; keep your temper, if you can,— • 
for one angry man is as good as another ; restrain 
them from violence, promptly, completely, and 
with the least possible injury, just as in the case 
of maniacs, — and when you have got rid of them, 
or got them tied hand and foot so that they can 
do no mischief, sit down and contemplate them 
charitably, remembering that nine tenths of their 
perversity comes from outside influences, drunken 
ancestors, abuse in childhood, bad company, from 
which you have happily been preserved, and for 
some of which you, as a member of society, may 
be fractionally responsible. I think also that there 
are special influences which ivork in the blood like 
ferments, and I have a suspicion that some of 
those curious old stories I cited may have more 
recent parallels. Have you ever met with any 
cases which admitted of a solution like that w hicb 
I have mentioned ? 

Yours very truly, 


284 


ELSIE VENNER. 


Bernard Langdon to Philip Staples, 

My dear Philip, — 

I HAVE been for some months established in 
this place, turning the main crank of the machin- 
ery for the manufactory of -accomplishments 
superintended by, or rather worked to the profit 
of, a certain Mr. Silas Peckham. He is a poor 
wretch, with a little thin fishy blood in his body, 
lean and flat, long-armed and large-handed, thick- 
jointed and thin-muscled, — you know those un- 
wholesome, weak-eyed, half-fed creatures, that 
look not fit to be round among live folks, and 
fet not quite dead enough to bury. If you ever 
Aear of my being in court to answer to a charge 
of assault and battery, you may guess that . I 
lave been giving him a thrashing to settle off old 
scores ; for he is a tyrant, and has come pretty 
near killing his principal lady-assistant with over- 
working her and keeping her out of all decent 
privileges. 

Helen Barley is this lady’s name, — twenty-two 
or -three years old, I should think, — a very sweet 
pale woman, — daughter of the usual country 
clergyman, — thrown on her own resources firom 
an early age, and the rest : a common story, but 
an uncommon person, — very. All conscience and 
sensibility, I should say, — a cruel worker, — nc 
kind of regard for herself, — seems as fragile anc 
•upple as a young willow-shoot, but try her am 


ELSIE VENNER. 


285 


you find she has the spring in her of a steel cross- 
bow. I am glad I happened to come to this 
place, if it were only for her sake. I have saved 
that girPs life ; I am as sure of it as if I had pulled 
her out of the fire or water. 

Of course I’m in love with her, you say, — we 
always love those whom we have benefited 
“saved her life, — her love was the reward of his 
devotion,” etc., etc., as in a regular set novel. In 
love, Philip? Well, about that, — I love Helen 
Harley — very much: there is hardly anybody I 
love so well. What a noble creature she is ! 
One of those that just go right on, do their own 
work and everybody else’s, killing themselves inch 
by inch without ever thinking about it, — singing 
and dancing at their toil when they begin, worn 
and saddened after a while, but pressing steadily 
on, tottering by-and-by, and catching at the lail 
by the way-side to help them lift one foot before 
the other, and at last falling, face down, arms 
stretched forward 

Philip, my boy, do you know I am the sort 
of man that locks his door sometimes and cries 
his heart out of his eyes, — that can sob like a 
woman and not be ashamed of it? I come of 
fighting- blood on one side, you know ; I think I 
could be savage on occasion. But I am tender 
— more and more tender as I come into my ful 
ness of manhood. I don’t like to strike a man, 
(laugh, if you like, — I know I hit hard when 1 
do strike,) — but what I can’t stand is the sight 


286 


ELSIE TENNER. 


of these poor, patient, toiling women, who iievei 
find out in this life how good they are, and nevei 
know what it is to be told they are angels while 
they still wear the pleasing incumbrances of hu- 
manity. I don’t know what to make of these 
cases. To think that a woman is never to be 
a woman again, whatever she may come to as 
an unsexed angel, — and that she should die 
unloved ! Why does not somebody come and 
carry off this noble woman, waiting here all ready 
to make a man happy ? Philip, do you know the 
pathos there is in the eyes of unsought women, 
oppressed with the burden of an inner life un- 
shared ? I can see into them now as I could not 
in those earlier days. I sometimes think their 
pupils dilate on purpose to let my consciousness 
glide through them ; indeed, I dread them, I come 
so close to the nerve of the soul itself in these 
momentary intimacies. You used to tell me I 
was a Turk, — that my heart was full of pigeon- 
holes, with accommodations inside for a whole 
flock of doves. I don’t know but I am still as 
Youngish as ever in my ways, — Brigham- 
V’oungish, I mean; at any rate, I always want 
to give a little love to all the poor things that 
cannot have a whole man to themselves. If they 
would only be contented with a little ! 

Here now are two girls in this school where I 
am teaching. One of them, Rosa M., is not 
more than sixteen years old, I think they say 
but Nature has forced her into a tropical luxurj 


ELSIE VENNER. 


287 


ance of beauty, as if it were July with her, in- 
stead of May. I suppose it is all natural enough 
that this girl should like a young man’s attention, 
even if he were a grave school-master; but the 
eloquence of this young thing’s look is unmis* 
takable, — and yet she does not know the lan- 
guage it is talking, — they none of them do ; and 
there is where a good many poor creatures of our 
good-for-nothing sex are mistaken. There is no 
danger of my being rash, but I think this girl 
will cost somebody his life yet. She is one of 
those women men make a quarrel about and 
fight to the death for, — the old feral instinct, you 
know. 

Pray, don’t think I am lost in conceit, but 
there is another girl here who I begin to think 
looks with a certain kindness on me. Her name 
is Elsie V., and she is the only daughter and heir- 
ess of an old family in this place. She is a por- 
tentous and almost fearful creature. If I should 
tell you all I know and half of what I fancy 
about her, you would tell me to get my life in- 
Lured at once. Yet she is the most painfully 
interesting being, — so handsome! so lonely! — 
for she has no friends among the girls, and sits 
apart from them, — with black hair like the flow 
of a mountain-brook after a thaw, with a low- 
browed, scowling beauty of face, and such eyes 
as were never seen before, I really believe, in any 
human creature. 

Philip, I don’t know what to say about this 


•88 


ELSIE VENNER. 


Elsie. There is so^.iething about her T have not 
fathomed. I have conjectures which I could not 
utter to any living soul. I dare not even hint 
the possibilities which have suggested themselves 
to me. This I will say, — that I do take the most 
intense interest in this young person, an interest 
much more like pity than love in its common 
sense. If what I guess at is true, of all the trag- 
edies of existence I ever knew this is the saddest, 
and yet so full of meaning ! Do not ask me any 
questions, — I have said more than I meant to 
already ; but I am involved in strange doubts and 
perplexities, — in dangers too, very possibly, — 
and it is a relief just to speak ever so guardedly 
of them to an early and faithful friend. 

Yours ever, 

Bernard. 

P. S. I remember you had a copy of Fortu- 
nius Licetus “ De Monstris ” among your old 
books. Can’t you lend it to me for a while ? 1 

im curious, and it will amuse me. 


ELSIE VENNER. 


283 


CHAPTER XVn. 

OLD SOl’HT CALLS ON THS. REVEREND DOCTOR. 

The two meeting-houses which faced each 
other like a pair of fighting-cocks had not flapped 
their wings or crowed at each other for a consid- 
erable time. The Reverend Mr. Fairweather had 
been dyspeptic and low-spirited of late, and was 
too languid for controversy. The Reverend Doc* 
tor Honeywood had been very busy with his be- 
nevolent associations, and had discoursed chiefly 
on practical matters, to the neglect of special 
doctrinal subjects. His senior deacon ventured 
10 say to him that some of his people required to 
be reminded of the great fundamental doctrine 
of the worthlessness of all human efforts and mo- 
tives. Some of them were altogether too much 
pleased with the success of the Temperance So- 
ciety and the Association for the Relief of the 
Poor. There was a pestilent heresy about, con- 
cerning the satisfaction to be derived from a good 
conscience, — as if anybody ever did anything 
19 


290 


ELSIE VENNER. 


which was not to be hated, loathed, despised and 
condemned. 

The old minister listened gravely, with an in- 
ward smile, and told his deacon that he would at- 
tend to his suggestion. After the deacon had gone, 
he tumbled over his manuscripts, until at length 
he came upon his first-rate old sermon on “ Ha 
man Nature.” He had read a great deal of hard 
theology, and had at last reached that curious 
state which is so common in good ministers, — 
that, namely, in which they contrive to switch 
off their logical faculties on the narrow side-track 
of their technical dogmas, while the great freight- 
train of their substantial human qualities keeps 
in the main highway of common-sense, in which 
kindly souls are always found by all who approach 
them by their human side. 

The Doctor read his sermon with a pleasant, 
paternal interest: it was well argued from his 
premises. Here and there he dashed his pen 
through a harsh expression. Now and then he 
added an explanation or qualified a broad state- 
ment. But his mind was on the logical side- 
track, and he followed the chain of reasoning 
without fairly perceiving where it would lead 
him, if he carried it into real life. 

He was just touching up the final proposition, 
when his granddaughter, Letty, once before re- 
ferred to, came into the room with her smiling 
face and lively movement. Miss Letty or Letitia 
Forrester was a city -bred girl of some fifteen 07 


ELSIE VENNER. 


291 


lixteen years old, who was passing the summer 
with her grandfather for the sake of country air and 
quiet. It was a sensible arrangement ; for, having 
the promise of figuring as a belle by-and-by, and 
being a little given to dancing, and having a 
voice which drew a pretty dense circle around 
the piano when she sat down to play and sing, 
it was hard to keep her from being carried into 
society before her time, by the mere force of mu- 
tual attraction. Fortunately, she had some quiet 
as well as some social tastes, and was willing 
enough to pass two or three of the summer 
months in the country, where she was much 
better bestowed than she would have been at 
one of those watering-places where so many half- 
formed girls get prematurely hardened in the vice 
of self-consciousness. 

Miss Letty was altogether too wholesome, 
hearty, and high-strung a young girl to be a 
model, according to the flat-chested and cachectic 
pattern which is the classical type of certain ex- 
cellent young females, often the subjects of bio- 
graphical memoirs. But the old minister was 
proud of his granddaughter for all that. She 
was so full of life, so graceful, so generous, so 
vivacious, so ready always to do all she could for 
him and for everybody, so perfectly frank in her 
avowed delight in the pleasures which this miser- 
able world offered her in the shape of natura. 
beauty, of i)oetry, of music, of companionship 
of books, of cheerful cooperation in the tasks of 


292 


ELSIE VENNER. 


those about her, that the Reverend Doctor c( aid 
not find it in his heart to condemn her because 
she was deficient in those particular graces and 
that signal other-worldliness he had sometimes 
noticed in feeble young persons suffering from 
various chronic diseases which impaired their 
vivacity and removed them from the range of 
temptation. 

When Letty, therefore, came bounding into the 
old minister’s study, he glanced up from his man- 
uscript, and, as his eye fell upon her, it flashed 
across him that there was nothing so very mon- 
strous and unnatural about the specimen of con- 
genital perversion he was looking at, with his 
features opening into their pleasantest sunshine. 
Technically, according to the fifth proposition of 
the sermon on Human Nature, very bad, no 
doubt. Practically, according to the fact before 
him, a very pretty piece of the Creator’s handi- 
work, body and soul. Was it not a conceivable 
thing that the divine grace might show itself in 
different forms in a fresh young girl like Letitia, 
and in that poor thing he had visited yesterday, 
half-grown, half-colored, in bed for the last year 
with hip-disease? Was it to be supposed that 
this healthy young girl, with life throbbing all 
over her, could, without a miracle, be good ac- 
cording to the invalid pattern and formula ? 

And yet there were mysteries in human nature 
which pointed to some tremendous perversion of 
its tendencies, — to some profound, radical vie# 


ELSIE VENNER. 


293 


of moral constitution, native or transmitted, as 
you will have it, but positive, at any rate, as the 
leprosy, breaking out in the blood of races, guard 
them ever so carefully. Did he not know the 
case of a young lady in Rockland, daughter of 
one of the first families in the place, a very beau- 
tiful and noble creature to look at, for wfiose 
bringing-up nothing had been spared, — a girl 
who had had governesses to teach her at the 
house, who had been indulged almost too kindly, 
^a girl whose father had given himself up to 
her, he being himself a pure and high-souled 
man? — and yet this girl was accused in whis- 
pers of having been on the very verge of com- 
mitting a fatal crime ; she was an object of fear 
to all who knew the dark hints which had been 
let fall about her, and there were some that be- 
lieved Why, what was this but an instance 

of the total obliquity and degeneration of the 
moral principle? and to what could it be ow- 
ing, but to an innate organic tendency? 

“ Busy, grandpapa ? ” said Letty, and without 
waiting for an answer kissed his cheek with a 
pair of lips made on purpose for that little func- 
tion, — fine, but richly turned out, the corners 
lucked in with a finish of pretty dimples, the 
rose-bud lips of girlhood’s June. 

The old gentleman looked at his granddaugh- 
ter. Nature swelled up firom his heart in a wave 
that sent a glow to his cheek and a sparkle to hia 
?ye. But it is very hard to be interrupted just as 


294 


ELSIE VENNER. 


we are winding up a string of propositions with 
the grand conclusion which is the statement in 
brief of all that has gone before : our own start* 
ing-point, into which we have been trying to back 
our reader or listener as one backs a horse into 
the shafts. 

Video melioray prohoque ^ — I see the better, 
and approve it; deteriora seqiior^ I follow after 
the wmrse; ’tis that natural dislike to what is 
good, pure, holy, and true, that inrooted selfish- 
ness, totally insensible to the claims of” 

Here the w*orthy man was interrupted by Miss 
Letty. 

“ Do come, if you can, grandpapa,” said the 
young girl ; “ here is a poor old black woman 
wants to see you so much!” 

The good minister was as kind-hearted as if 
he had never groped in the dust and ashes of 
those cruel old abstractions which have killed 
out so much of the world’s life and happiness. 

With the heart man believeth unto righteous- 
ness”; a man’s love is the measure of his fit- 
ness for good or bad company here or elsewhere. 
Men arc tattooed with their special beliefs like so 
many South- Sea Islanders ; but a real human 
heart, with Divine love in it, beats with the same 
glow under all the patterns of all earth’s thou- 
sand tribes ! 

The Doctor sighed, and folded the sermon, and 
laid the Quarto Cruden on it. He rose from his 
desk, and, looking once more at the young girl’i 


ELSIE VENNER. 


295 


ace, forgot his logical conclusions, and said to 
himself that she was a little angel, — which waa 
in violent contradiction to the leading doctrine of 
his sermon on Human Nature. And so he fol- 
lowed her out of the study into the wide entrj 
of the old-fashioned country-house. 

An old black woman sat on the plain oaken 
settle which humble visitors waiting to see the 
minister were wont to occupy. She was old, but 
how old it would be very hard to guess. She 
might be seventy. She might be ninety. One 
could not swear she was not a hundred. Black 
women remain at a stationary age (to the eyes 
of white people, at least) for thirty years. They 
do not appear to change during this period any 
more than so many Trenton trilobites. Bent up, 
wrinkled, yellow-eyed, with long upper-lip, pro- 
jecting jaws, retreating chin, still meek features, 
long arms, large flat hands with uncolored palms 
and slightly webbed fingers, it was impossible not 
to see in this old creature a hint of the gradations 
by which life climbs up through the lower natures 
to the highest human developments. We cannot 
tell such old women’s ages because we do not 
understand the physiognomy of a race so unlike 
our own. No doubt they see a great deal in each 
other’s faces that we cannot, — changes of color 
Rnd expression as real as Dur own, blushes and 
gudden betrayals of feeling — just as these two 
canaries know what their single notes and short 
lentcnces and full song with this or that varia 


ELSIE VENNER. 


tion mean, though it is a mystery to us uii plumed 
mortals. 

This particular old black woman was a striking 
specimen of her class. Old as she looked, her 
eye was bright and knowing. She wore a red 
and-yellow turban, which set off her complexion 
well, and hoops of gold in her ears, and beads of 
gold about her neck, and an old funeral ring upon 
her finger. She had that touching stillness about 
her which belongs to animals that wait to be 
spoken to and then look up with a kind of sad 
humility. 

“ Why, Sophy I ” said the good minister, “ is 
this you ? ’’ 

She looked up with the still expression on her 
face. “ It’s ol’ Sophy,” she said. 

“ Why,” said the Doctor, “ I did not believe 
you could walk so far as this to save the Union. 
Bring Sophy a glass of wine, Letty. Wine’s 
good for old folks like Sophy and me, after walk- 
ing a good way, or preaching a good while.” 

The young girl stepped into the back-parlor, 
where she found the great pewter flagon in 
which the wine that was left after each com 
munion-service was brought to the minister’ 
house. With much toil she managed to tip it so 
as to get a couple of glasses filled. The min- 
ister tasted his, and made old Sophy finish hers. 

“ I wan’ to see you ’n’ talk wi’ you aU alone,” 
•he said presently. 

The minister got up and led the way towarda 


ELSIE VENNER. 


297 


nis study. “ To be sure,” he said ; he had only 
waited for her to rest a moment before he asked 
her into the library. The young girl took her 
gently by the arm, and helped her feeble steps 
along the passage. When they reached th^ 
study, she smoothed the cushion of a rocking 
chair, and made the old woman sit down in it. 
Then she tripped lightly away, and left her alone 
with the minister. 

Old Sophy was a member of the Reverend 
Doctor Honeywood’s church. She had been put 
through the necessary confessions in a tolerably 
satisfactory manner. To be sure, as her grand- 
father had been a cannibal chief, according to the 
common story, and, at any rate, a terrible wild 
savage, and as her mother retained to the last 
some of the prejudices of her early education, 
there was a heathen flavor in her Christianity, 
which had often scandalized the elder of the 
minister’s two deacons. But the good minis- 
ter had smoothed matters over: had explained 
that allowances were to be made for those who 
had been long sitting without the gate of Ziom 
— that, no doubt, a part of the curse which de- 
scended to the children of Ham consisted in 
“having the understanding darkened,” as well 
as the skin, — and so had brought his suspi- 
cious senior deacon to tolerate old Sophy as 
ne of the communion of feilow-sinners. 

— Poor things ! How little we know the 


298 


ELSIE YENNER. 


simple notions with which these rudiments of 
souls are nourished by the Divine Goodness ! Did 
not Mrs. Professor come home this very blessed 
morning with a story of one of her old black 
women 

“ And how do you feel to-day, Mrs. Robinson?’ 

“ Oh, my dear, I have this singing in my head 
all the time.” (What doctors call tinnitus aurium,) 

“ She’s got a cold in the head,” said old Mrs. 
Rider. 

“ Oh, no, my dear ! Whatever Fm thinking 
about, it’s all this singing, this music. When Fm 
thinking of the dear Redeemer, it all turns into 
this singing and music. When the dark came to 
see me, I asked him if lie couldn’t cure me, aiid 
he said. No, — it was the Holy Spirit in me, sing- 
ing to me ; and all the time I hear this beautiful 
music, and it’s the Holy Spirit a-singing to 
me.” 

The good man waited for Sophy to speak ; but 
she did not open her lips as yet. 

“ I hope you are not troubled in mind or body,” 
he said to her at length, finding she did not speak. 

The poor old woman took out a white hand- 
kerchief, and lifted it to her black face. She 
could not say a word for her tears and sobs. 

The minister would have consoled her ; he was 
used to tears, and could in most cases withstand 
their contagion manfully ; but something chokec 
ois voice suddenly, and when he called upon it 


ELSIE VENNEE. 


299 


he got no answer, but a tremulous movement of 
the muscles, which was worse than silence. 

At last she spoke. 

“ Oh, no, no, no ! It’s my poor girl, my dar* 
ling, my beauty, my baby, that’s grown up to be a 
woman ; she will come to a bad end; she will do 
something that will make them kill her or shut 
her up all her life. Oh, Doctor, Doctor, save hei, 
pray for her ! It a’n’t her fault. It a’n’t her fault, 
K they knew all that I know, they wouldn’ blame 
that poor child. I must tell you, Doctor: if 1 
should die, perhaps nobody else would tell you. 
Massa Venner can’t talk about it. Doctor Kit 
tredge won’t talk about it. Nobody but old So- 
phy to tell you. Doctor ; and old Sophy can’t die 
without telling you.” 

The kind minister soothed the poor old soul 
with those gentle, quieting tones which had car- 
ried peace and comfort to so many chambers of 
sickness and sorrow, to so many hearts overbur- 
dened by the trials laid upon them. 

Old Sophy became quiet in a few minutes, and 
proceeded to tell her story. She told it in the low 
half-whisper which is the natural voice of lips op- 
pressed with grief and fears ; with quick glances 
around the apartment from time to time, as if she 
dreaded lest the dim portraits on the walls and 
the dark folios on the shelves might overhear her 
words. 

It was not one of those conversations which a 
third person can report minutely, unless by that 


aoo 


ELSIE VENNER 


miracle of clairvoyance known to the readers of 
stories made out of authors’ brains. Yet its main 
character can be imparted in a much briefer space 
than the old black woman took to give all its 
details. 

She went far back to the time when Dudley 
Venner was born, — she being then a middle-aged 
woman. The heir and hope of a family which 
had been narrowing down as if doomed to extincs 
tion, he had been surrounded with every care and 
trained by the best education he could have in 
New England. He had left college, and was 
studying the profession which gentlemen of lei* 
sure most affect, when he fell in love with a young 
girl left in the world almost alone, as he was. 
The old woman told the story of his young love 
and his joyous bridal with a tenderness which had 
something more, even, than her family sympathies 
to account for it. Had she not hanging over her 
bed a paper-cutting of a profile — jet black, but 
not blacker than the face it represented — of one 
who would have been her own husband in the 
small years of this century, if the vessel in which 
he went to sea, like Jamie in the ballad, had not 
sailed away and never come back to land ? Had 
she not her bits of furniture stowed away which 
had been got ready for her own wedding, — two 
rocking-chairs, one worn with long use, one kept 
for him so long that it had grown a superstition 
with her never to sit in it, — and might he not 
come back yet, after all ? Had she not her chest 


ELSIE VENKER. 


301 


of linen ready for her humble house-keeping, with 
store of serviceable huckaback and piles of neatly 
folded kerchiefs, wherefrom this one that showed 
BO white against her black face was taken, for that 
he knew her eyes would betray her in “ the 
resence ” ? 

Ail the first part of the story the old woman 
told tenderly, and yet dwelling upon every inci- 
dent with a loving pleasure. How happy this 
young couple had been, what plans and projects 
of improvement they had formed, how they lived 
in each other, always together, so young and fresh 
and beautiful as she remembered them in that one 
early summer when they walked arm in arm 
through the wilderness of roses that ran riot in the 
garden, — she told of this as loath to leave it and 
come to the woe that lay beneath. 

She told the whole story ; — shall I repeat it ? 
Not now. If, in the course of relating the inci- 
dents I have undertaken to report, it tells itself^ 
perhaps this will be better than to run the risk of 
producing a painful impression on some of those 
susceptible readers whom it would be ill-advised 
to disturb or excite, when they rather require to 
be amused and soothed. In our pictures of life, 
we must show the flowering-out of terrible 
growths which have their roots deep, deep under- 
ground. Just how far we shall lay bare the un- 
Becmly roots themselves is a matter of discretion 
Rnd taste, in which none of us are infallible. 

The old woman told the whole story of Elsie^ 


502 


ELSIE VENNER. 


of her birth, of her peculiarities of person and dis 
position, of the passionate fears and hopes with 
which her father had watched the course of her 
development. She recounted all her strange ways, 
from the hour when she first tried to crawl across 
the carpet, and her father’s look as she worked her 
way towards him. With the memory of Juliet’s 
nurse she told the story of her teething, and how, 
the woman to whose breast she had clung dying 
suddenly about that time, they had to struggle 
hard with the child before she would learn the ac- 
complishment of feeding with a spoon. And so 
of her fierce plays and fiercer disputes with that 
boy who had been her companion, and the whole 
scene of the quarrel when she struck him with 
those sharp white teeth, brightening her, old So- 
phy, almost to death ; for, as she said, the boy 
would have died, if it hadn’t been for the old 
Doctor’s galloping over as fast as he could gallop 
and burning the places right out of his arm. 
Then came the story of that other incident, suf- 
ficiently alluded to already, which had produced 
such an ecstasy of fright and left such a night- 
mare of apprehension in the household. And so 
the old woman came down to this present time. 
That boy she never loved nor trusted was grown 
to a dark, dangerous-looking man, and he was un 
der their roof. He wanted to marry our poor 
Elsie, and Elsie hated him, and sometimes she 
would look at him over her shoulder just as she 
ttsed to look at that woman she hated * and she 


ELSIE VENNER. 


303 


old Sophy, couldn’t sleep for thinking she should 
hear a scream from the white chamber some night 
and find him in spasms such as that woman 
came so near dying with. And then there was 
something about Elsie she did not know what to 
make of: she would sit and hang her head some- 
times, and look as if she were dreaming ; and she 
brought home books they said a young gentleman 
up at the great school lent her: and once she 
heard her whisper in her sleep, and she talked ab 
young girls do to themselves when they’re think- 
ing about somebody they have a liking for and 
think nobody knows it. 

She finished her long story at last. The minis- 
ter had listened to it in perfect silence. He sat 
still even when she had done speaking, — still 
and lost in thought. It was a very awkward 
matter for him to have a hand in. Old Sophy 
was his parishioner, but the Verniers had a pew 
in the Reverend Mr. Fairweather’s meeting-house. 
It would seem that he, Mr. Fairweather, was the 
natural adviser of the parties most interested. 
Had he sense and spirit enough to deal with such 
people ? Was there enough capital of humanity 
in his somewhat limited nature to furnish sympa- 
thy and unshrinking service for his friends in an 
emergency? or was he too busy with his own 
attacks of spiritual neuralgia, and too much oc- 
cupied with taking account of stock of his own 
thin-blooded offences, to forget himself and hia 
personal interests on the small scale and the large. 


S04 


ELSIE VENNER. 


and run a risk of his life, if need were, at anj 
rate give himself up without reserve to the dan 
gerous task of guiding and counselling these dis* 
tressed and imperilled fellow-creatures ? 

The good minister thought the best thing to do 
would be to call and talk over some of these mat* 
ters with Brother Fairweather, — for so he would 
call him at times, especially if his senior deacon 
were not within earshot. Having settled this 
point, he comforted Sophy with a few words of 
counsel and a promise of coming to see her very 
soon. He then called his man to put the old 
white horse into the chaise and drive Sophy back 
to the mansion-house. 

When the Doctor sat down to his sermon 
again, it looked very differently from the way it 
had looked at the moment he left it. When he 
came to think of it, he did not feel quite so sure 
practically about that matter of the utter natural 
selfishness of everybody. There was Letty, now, 
seemed to take a very wwselfish interest in that 
old black woman, and indeed in poor people gen- 
erally ; perhaps it would not be too much to say 
that she was always thinking of other people. 
He thought he had seen other young persons 
naturally unselfish, thoughtful for others ; it 
seemed to be a family trait in some he had 
known. 

But most of all he was exercised about this 
poor girl whose story Sophy had been telling 
If what the old woman believed was true, — ana 


ELSIE VENNER. 


305 


It had too much semblance of probability, — 
what became of his theory of ingrained moral 
obliquity applied to such a case ? K by the vis- 
itation of God a person receives any injury which 
impairs the intellect or the moral perceptions, is 
it not monstrous to judge such a person by oui 
common working standards of right and wrong? 
Certainly, everybody will answer, in cases where 
there is a palpable organic change brought about, 
as when a blow on the head produces insanity. 
Fools! How long will it be before we shall learn 
that for every wound which betrays itself to the 
sight by a scar, there are a thousand unseen mu- 
tilations that cripple, each of them, some one or 
more of our highest faculties? If what Sophy 
told and believed was the real truth, what prayers 
could be agonizing enough, what tenderness could 
be deep enough, for this poor, lost, blighted, hap- 
less, blameless child of misfortune, struck by such 
a doom as perhaps no living creature in all the 
sisterhood of humanity shared with her ? 

The minister thought these matters over until 
his mind was bewildered with doubts and tossed 
to and fro on that stormy deep of thought heav 
ing forever beneath the conflict of windy dogmas 
He laid by his old sermon. He put back a pile 
of old commentators with their eyes and mouths 
and hearts full of the dust of the schools. Then 
he opened the book of Genesis at the eighteenth 
chapter and read that remarkable argument of 
Abraham’s with hin Maker, in which he boldly 


306 


ELSIE VENNER. 


appeals to first principles. He took as his text, 
Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right ? ” 
and began to write his sermon, afterwards so 
famous, — “ On the Obligations of an Infinite 
Creator to a Finite Creature.’^ 

It astonished the good people, who had been 
accustomed so long to repeat mechanically their 
Oriental hyperboles of self-abasement, to hear 
their worthy minister maintaining that the dig- 
nified attitude of the old Patriarch, insisting on 
what was reasonable and fair with reference to 
his fellow-creatures, was really much more re- 
spectful to his Maker, and a great deal manlier 
and more to his credit, than if he had yielded the 
whole matter, and pretended that men had not 
rights as well as duties. The same logic which 
had carried him to certain conclusions with refer- 
ence to human nature, this same irresistible logic 
carried him straight on from his text until he ar- 
rived at those other results, which not only aston- 
ished his people, as was said, but surprised him- 
self. He went so far in defence of the rights of 
man, that he put his foot into several heresies, foi 
which men had been burned so often, it was time, 
if ever it could be, to acknowledge the demon- 
stration of the argumentum ad ignem. He did not 
believe in the responsibility of idiots. He did 
not believe a new-born infant was morally an- 
swerable for other people’s acts. He thought a 
man with a crooked spine would never be called 
to account for pot walking erect. He thought 


ELSIE VENNElv. 


307 


if the crook was in his brain, instead of his back 
he could not fairly be blamed for any consequence 
of this natural defect, whatever lawyers or divines 
might call it. He argued, that, if a person in- 
herited a perfect mind, body, and disposition, and 
had perfect teaching from infancy, that person 
could do nothing niore than keep the moral lav; 
perfectly. But supposing that the Creator allows 
a person to be born with an hereditary or ingrafted 
organic tendency, and then puts this person into 
the hands of teachers incompetent or positively 
bad, is not what is called sin or transgression of 
the law necessarily involved in the premises ? Is 
not a Creator bound to guard his children against 
the ruin which inherited ignorance might entail 
on them ? Would it be fair for a parent to put 
into a child’s hands the title-deeds to all its future 
possessions, and a bunch of matches ? And are 
not men children, nay, babes, in the eye of Om- 
niscience ? — The minister grew bold in his ques- 
tions. Had not he as good right to ask questions 
as Abraham ? 

This was the dangerous vein of speculation in 
v/hich the Reverend Doctor Honey wood found 
himself involved, as a consequence of the sug 
gestions forced upon him by old Sophy’s com- 
munication. The truth was, the good man had 
got so humanized by mixing up wi^h other peo* 
pie in various benevolent schemes, that, the very 
moment he could escape from his old scholastic 
•bstractions, he took the side of humanity i»» 


308 


ELSIE VENNEK. 


Btinctively, just as the Father of the Faithful did 
— all honor be to the noble old Patriarch for in- 
sisting on the worth of an honest man, and mak- 
ing the best terms he could for a very ill-condi- 
tioned metropolis, which might possibly, however 
have contained ten righteous people, for whose 
Galic it should be spared ! 

The consequence of all this was, that he was 
in a singular and seemingly self-contradictory 
state of mind when he took his hat and cane and 
went forth to call on his heretical brother. The 
old minister took it for granted that the Reverend 
Mr. Fairweather knew the private history of his 
parishioner’s family. He did not reflect that there 
are griefs men never put i nto words, — that there 
are fears which must not be spoken, — intimate 
matters of consciousness which must be carried, 
as bullets which have been driven deep into the 
living tissues are sometimes carried, for a whole 
lifetime, — encysted griefs, if we may borrow 
the chirurgeon’s term, never to be reached, never 
to be seen, never to be thrown out, but to go into 
the dust with the frame that bore them about 
with it, during long years of anguish, known onl 
to the sufferer and his Maker. Dudley Venne 
had tallied with his minister about this child of 
his. But he had talked cautiously, feeling hi a 
way for sympathy, looking out for those indica- 
tions ot tact and judgment which would war 
rant him in some partial communication, at least- 
of the origin of his doubts and fears, and never 
flnding them. 


ELSIE VENNER. 


SO\t 

There was something about the Reverend Mr, 
Fairweather which repressed all attempts at con- 
fidential intercourse. What this something was, 
Dudley Venner could hardly say ; but he lelt it 
distinctly, and it sealed his lips. He never got 
beyond certain generalities connected with edu- 
cation and religious instruction. The ministei 
could not help discovering, however, that there 
were difficulties connected with this girl’s man- 
agement, and he heard enough outside of the 
family to convince him that she had manifested 
tendencies, from an early age, at variance with 
the theoretical opinions he was in the habit of 
preaching, and in a dim way of holding for truth, 
as to the natural dispositions of the human 
being. 

About this terrible fact of congenital obliquity 
his new beliefs began to cluster as a centre, and 
to take form as a crystal around its nucleus. 
Still, he might perhaps have struggled against 
them, had it not been for the little Roman Cath- 
olic chapel he passed every Sunday, on his way 
to the meeting-house. Such a crowd of worship- 
pers, swarming into the pews like bees, filling alj, 
the aisles, running over at the door like berries 
heaped too full in the measure, — some kneeling 
on the steps, some standing on the side-walk, 
hats off, heads down, lips moving, some looking 
on devoutly from the other side of the street! 
Oh, could he have followed his own Bridget, 
maid of all work, into the heart of that steaming 


310 


ELSIE VENDER. 


throng, and bowed his head while the piiests in 
toned their Latin prayers! could he have snufled 
up the cloud of frankincense, and felt that he 
was in the great ark which holds the better half 
of the Christian world, while all around it are 
wretched creatures, some struggling against the 
waves in leaky boats, and some on ill-connected 
rafts, and some with their heads just above water, 
thinking to ride out the flood which is to sweep 
the earth clean of sinners, upon their own private, 
individual life-preservers ! 

Such was the present state of mind of the 
Reverend Chauncy Fairweather, when his clerical 
brother called upon him to talk over the ques- 
t\ons to which old Sophy had called his attention 


ELSIE VENNER. 


3JJ 


CHAPTER XYIII. 

THE REVEREND DOCTOR CALLS ON BROTHER FAIR- 
WEATHER. 

For the last few months, while all these vari- 
ous matters were going on in Rockland, the Rev- 
erend Chauncy Fairweather had been busy with 
the records of ancient councils and the writings 
of the early fathers. The more he read, the more 
discontented he became with the platform upon 
which he and his people were standing. They 
and he were clearly in a minority, and his deep 
inward longing to be with the majority was 
growing into an engrossing passion. He yearned 
especially towards the good old unquestioning, 
authoritative Mother Church, with her articles of 
faith which took away the necessity for private 
judgment, with her traditional forms and cere- 
monies, and her whole apparatus of stimulants 
and anodynes. 

About this time he procured a breviary and 
kept it in his desk under tlie loose papers. He 
Bent to a Catholic bookstore and obtained a small 
crucifix suspended from a string of beads. He 
ordered his new coat to oe cut very narrow in 


312 


ELSIE TENNER. 


the collar and to be made single-breasted. He 
began an informal series of religious conversa- 
tions with Miss O’Brien, the young person of 
Irish extraction already referred to as Bridget 
maid of all work. These not proving very satis- 
factory, he managed to fall in with Father Mc- 
Shane, the Catholic priest of the Rockland church 
Father MeShane encouraged his nibble very sci- 
entifically. It would be such a fine thing to bring 
over one of those Protestant heretics, and a 
“ liberal ” one too ! — not that there was any real 
difference between them, but it sounded bettci 
to say that one of these rationalizing free-and- 
equal religionists had been made a convert than 
any of those half-way Protestants who were the 
slaves of catechisms instead of councils and of 
commentators instead of popes. The subtle 
priest played his disciple with his finest tackle 
It was hardly necessary : when anything or any 
body wishes to be caught, a bare hook and a 
coarse line are all that is needed. 

If a man has a genuine, sincere, hearty wish 
to get rid of his liberty, if he is really bent upon 
becoming a slave, nothing can stop him. And the 
temptation is to some natures a very great one. 
Liberty is often a heavy burden on a man. It in- 
Tolves that necessity for perpetual choice which is 
the kind of labor men have always dreaded. In 
common life we shirk it by forming habits, which 
take the place of self-determination. In politics 
^mrty -organization saves us the pains of much 


ELSIE VENNEL. 


3ia 


thinking before deciding how to cast our vote 
In religious matters there are great multitudes 
watching us perpetually, each propagandist ready 
with his bundle of finalities, which having accept- 
ed we may be at peace. The more absolute the 
submission demanded, the stronger the terapta 
tion becomes to those who have been long tossed 
among doubts and conflicts. 

So it is that in all the quiet bays which indent 
the shores of the great ocean of thought, at every 
sinldng wharf, we see moored the hulks and the 
razees of enslaved or half-enslaved intelligences. 
They rock peacefully as children in their cradles 
on the subdued swell which comes feebly in over 
l.he bar at the harbor’s mouth, slowly crusting 
with barnacles, pulling at their iron cables as if 
they really wanted to be free, but better contented 
to remain bound as they are. For these no more 
the round unwalled horizon of the open sea, 
the joyous breeze aloft, the furrow, the foam, the 
sparkle that track the rushing keel ! They have 
escaped the dangers of the wave, and lie still 
henceforth, evermore. Happiest of souls, if leth- 
argy is bliss, and palsy the chief beatitude ! 

America owes its political freedom to relig- 
ious Protestantism. But political freedom is re- 
acting on religious prescription with still mightier 
force. We wonder, therefore, when we find a 
Boul which was born to a full sense of individual 
liberty, an unchallenged right of self-determina- 
lion on every new alleged truth offered to its 


314 


ELSIE VENDER, 


intelligence, voluntarily surrendering any portion 
of its liberty to a spiritual dictatorship which al- 
ways proves to rest, in the last analysis, on a 
majority vote^ nothing more nor less, commonly 
an old one, passed in those barbarous times 
when men cursed and murdered each other for 
differences of opinion, and of course were not in 
a condition to settle the beliefs of a compara 
tively civilized community. 

In our disgust, we are liable to be intolerant. 
We forget that weakness is not in itself a sin. 
We forget that even cowardice may call for our 
most lenient judgment, if it spring from innate 
infirmity. Who of us does not look with great 
tenderness on the young chieftain in the “ Fair 
Maid of Perth,” when he confesses his want of 
courage ? All of us love companionship and sym- 
pathy; some of us may love them too much. All 
of us are more or less imaginative in our the- 
ology. Some of us may find the aid of material 
symbols a comfort, if not a necessity. The 
boldest thinker may have his moments of lan- 
guor and discouragement, when he feels as if he 
could willingly exchange faiths with the old bel- 
dame crossing herself at the cathedral-door, — 
nay, that, if he could drop all coherent thought, 
and lie in the flowery meadow with tlie brown- 
eyed solemnly unthinking cattle, looking up to 
the sky, and all their simple consciousness stain- 
ing itself blue, then down to the grass, and life 
turning to a mere greenness, blended with con 


ELSIE VENXER. 


815 


fused scents of herbs, — no individual mind-move 
ment such as men are teased with, but the great 
calm cattle-sense of all time and all places that 
know the milky smell of herds, — if he could be 
like these, he would be content to be driven home 
by the cow-boy, and share the grassy banquet of 
the king of ancient Babylon. Let us be very 
generous, then, in our judgment of those who 
leave the front ranks of thought for the company 
of the meek non-combatants who follow with the 
baggage and provisions. Age, illness, too much 
wear and tear, a half-formed paralysis, may bring 
any of us to this pass. But while we can think 
and maintain the rights of our own individuality 
against every human combination, let us not 
forget to caution all who are disposed to waver 
that there is a cowardice which is criminal, and 
a longing for rest which it is baseness to indulge. 
God help him, over whose dead soul in his liv- 
ing body must be uttered the sad supplication, 
Requiescat in pace ! 

A knock at the Reverend l\Ir. Fairweathcr’s 
study-door called his eyes from the book on which 
they were intent. He looked up, as if expecting 
a welcome guest. 

The Reverend Pierrepont Honeywood, D. D., 
entered the study of the Reverend Chauncy Fair- 
weather. He was not the expected guest. Mr, 
Fairweather slipped the book he was reading into 
a half-open drawer, and pushed in the drawer. 


516 


ELSIE VENNEB. 


He slid something which rattled under a papei 
lying on the table. He rose with a slight change 
ol color, and welcomed, a little awkwardly, hia 
unusual visitor. 

‘‘ Good evening. Brother Fairweather I ” said 
the Reverend Doctor, in a very cordial, good 
humored way. “ I hope I am not spoiling one of 
those eloquent sermons 1 never have a chance to 
hear.” 

“ Not at all, not at all,” the younger clergyman 
answered, in a languid tone, with a kind of ha- 
bitual half-querulousness which belonged to it, — 
the vocal expression which we meet with now 
and then, and which says as plainly as so many 
words could say it, “ I am a suffering individual. 
I am persistently undervalued, wronged, and im- 
posed upon by mankind and the powers of the 
universe generally. But I endure all. I endure 
you. Speak. I listen. It is a burden to me, but 
I even approve. I sacrifice myself. Behold this 
movement of my lips ! It is a smile.” 

The Reverend Doctor knew this forlorn way of 
Mr. Fairweather’s, and was not troubled by it. 
He proceeded to relate the circumstances of his 
visit from the old black woman, and the fear she 
was in about the young girl, who being a parish- 
ioner of Mr. Fair weather’s, he had thought it best 
to come over and speak to him about old Sophy’s 
fears and fancies. 

In telling the old woman’s story, he alluded 
only vaguely to those peculiar circumstances tc 


ELSIE VENNEli. 


317 


wriiich she had attributed so much importance, 
taking it for granted that the other minister must 
be familiar with the whole series of incidents she 
had related. The old minister was mistaken, as 
we have before seen. Mr. Fairweather had been 
settled in the place only about ten years, and, 
he had heard a strange hint now and then 
about Elsie, had never considered it as anything 
more than idle and ignorant, if not malicious, vil- 
lage-gossip. All that he fully understood was 
that this had been a perverse and unmanageable 
child, and that the extraordinary care which had 
been bestowed on her had been so far thrown 
away that she was a dangerous, self-willed girl, 
whom all feared and almost all shunned, as if she 
carried with her some malignant influence. 

He replied, therefore, after hearing the story, 
that Elsie had always given trouble. There 
seemed to be a kind of natural obliquity about 
her. Perfectly unaccountable. A very dark case. 
Never amenable to good influences. Had sent 
her good books from the Sunday-school library. 
Remembered that she tore out the frontispiece of 
one if them, and kept it, and flung the book out 
al The window. It was a picture of Eve’s temp- 
tation ; and he recollected her saying that Eve 
was a good woman, — and she’d have done just 
so, if she’d been there. A very sad child, — very 
sad ; bad from infancy. — He had talked himself 
bold, and said all at once, — 

“ Doctor, do you know I am almost ready to 


518 


ELSIE VENNER. 


accept your doctrine of the congeniixi sinfulness 
of human nature ? I am afraid that is the onl^ 
thing which goes to the bottom of the difficulty.^ 

The old minister’s face did not open so approv* 
Ingly as Mr. Fairweather had expected. 

“ Why, yes, — well, — many find comfort in it, 
— I believe ; — there is much to be said, — there 
are many bad people, — and bad children, — 1 
can’t be so sure about bad babies, — though they 
cry very malignantly at times, — especially if 
they have the stomach-ache. But I really don’t 
know how to condemn this poor Elsie ; she may 
have impulses that act in her like instincts in the 
lower animals, and so not come under the bearing 
of our ordinary rules of judgment” 

“ But this depraved tendency. Doctor, — this 
unaccountable perverseness. My dear Sir, I am 
afraid your school is in the right about human na- 
ture. Oh, those words of the Psalmist, ‘ shapen 
in iniquity,’ and the rest ! What are we to do 
with them, — we who teach that the soul of a 
child is an unstained white tablet?” 

“ King David was very subject to fits of humil- 
ity, and much given to self-reproaches,” said the 
Doctor, in a rather dry way. “We owe you and 
your friends a good deal for calling attention to 
the natural graces, which, after all, may, perhaps, 
be considered as another form of manifestation 
of the divine influence. Some of our writers have 
pressed rather too hard on the tendencies of the 
auman soul toward evil as such. It may be que» 


ELSIE VENNER. 


sn 


lioned whether these views have not interfereci 
with the sound training of certain young persons, 
sons of clergymen and others. I am nearer of 
your mind about the possibility of educating 
children so that they shall become good Christians 
without any violent transition. That is what 1 
should hope for from bringing them up ‘ in the 
nurture and admonition of the Lord.’ ” 

The younger minister looked puzzled, but pres- 
ently answered, — 

“ Possibly we may have called attention to 
some neglected truths ; but, after all, I fear we 
must go to the old school, if we want to get at 
the root of the matter. I know there is an out- 
ward amiability about many young persons, some 
young girls especially, that seems like genuine 
goodness ; but I have been disposed of late to 
lean toward your view, that these human affec- 
tions, as we see them in our children, — ours, I 
say, though I have not the fearful responsibility 
of training any of my own, — are only a kind of 
disguised and sinful selfishness.” 

The old minister groaned in spirit. His heart 
had been softened by the sweet influences of 
children and grandchildren. He thought of a 
nalf-sized grave in the burial-ground, and the 
fine, brave, noble-hearted boy he laid in it thirty 
fears before, — the sweet, cheerful child who had 
made his home all sunshine until the day when 
he was brought into it, his "ong curls dripping, hia 
^esh lips purpled in death, — foolish dear little 


S20 


ELSIE VENDER. 


blessed creature to throw himself into the deep 
water to save the drowning boy, who clung about 
him and carried him under! Disguised selfish- 
ness! And his granddaughter too, whose dis- 
guised selfishness was the light of his house- 
hold ! 

“Don’t call it my view!” he said. “ Abstract* 
ly, perhaps, all natures may be considered vitiat- 
ed ; but practically, as I see it in life, the divine 
grace keeps pace with the perverted instincts from 
infancy in many natures. Besides, this perversion 
itself may often be disease, bad habits transmit- 
ted, like drunkenness, or some hereditary misfor- 
tune, as with this Elsie we were talking about.” 

The younger minister was completely mystified. 
At every step he made towards the Doctor’s rec- 
ognized theological position, the Doctor took just 
one step towards his. They would cross each 
other soon at this rate, and might as well ex- 
change pulpits, — as Colonel Sprowle once wished 
they would, it may be remembered. 

The Doctor, though a much clearer-headed man, 
was almost equally puzzled. He turned the con- 
versation again upon Elsie, and endeavored to 
make her minister feel the importance of bringing 
every friendly influence to bear upon her at this 
critical period of her life. His sympathies did 
not seem so lively as the Doctor could have 
wished. Perhaps he had vastly more important 
objects of solicitude in his own spiritual interests, 

A knock at the door interrupted them. Tn# 


ELSIE VENNER. 


32 - 


Reverend Mr. Fairweather rose and went towards 
it. As he passed the table, his coat caught some- 
thing, which came rattling to the floor. It was a 
crucifix with a string of beads attached. As he 
opened the door, the Milesian features of Father 
McShane presented themselves, and from theii 
centre proceeded the clerical benediction in Irish- 
sounding Latin, Pax vobiscum I 

The Reverend Doctor Honeywood rose and left 
the priest and his disciple together. 

21 


S22 


KTi Sl K 


CHAPTER XIX. 

THE SPIDER ON HIS THREAD. 

There was nobody, then, to counsel poor Elsies 
except her father, who had learned to let her have 
her own way so as not to disturb such relations 
as they had together, and the old black woman, 
who had a real, though limited influence over the 
girl. Perhaps she did not need counsel. To look 
upon her, one might well suppose that she was 
competent to defend herself against any enemy 
she was like to have. That glittering, piercing 
eye was not to be softened by a few smooth 
words spoken in low tones, charged with the 
common sentiments which win their way to 
maidens’ hearts. That round, lithe, sinuous fig- 
ure was as full of dangerous life as ever lay under 
the slender flanks and clean-shaped limbs of a 
panther. 

There were particular tirnes when Elsie was in 
such a mood that it must have been a bold per- 
son who would have intruded upon her with re- 
proof or counsel. “ This is one of her days,” old 
Sophy would say quietly to her father, and he 
\'Ould, as far as possible, leave her to herself 


ELSIE VENNER. 


323 


Thpse days were more frequent, as old Sopliy^s 
keen, concentrated watchfulness had taught her, 
at certain periods of the year. It was in the 
heats of summer that they were most common 
and most strongly characterized. In winter, on 
the other hand, she was less excitable, and even 
at times heavy and as if chilled and dulled in her 
sensibilities. It was a strange, paroxysmal kind 
of life that belonged to her. It seemed to come 
and go with the sunlight. All winter long she 
would be comparatively quiet, easy to manage, 
listless, slow in her motions ; her eye would lose 
something of its strange lustre ; and the old nurse 
would feel so little anxiety, that her whole ex- 
pression and aspect would show the change, and 
people would say to her, “Why, Sophy, how 
young you’re looking!” 

As the spring came on, Elsie would leave the 
fireside, have her tiger-skin spread in the empty 
southern chamber next the wall, and lie there 
basking for whole hours in the sunshine. As the 
season warmed, the light would kindle afresh in 
her eyes, and the old woman’s sleep would grow 
restless again, — for she knew, that, so long as the 
glitter was fierce in the girl’s eyes, there was no 
trusting her impulses or movements. 

At last, when the veins of the summer were hot 
and swollen, and the juices of all the poison-planta 
and the blood of all the creatures that feed upon 
them had grown thick ana strong, — about the 
time when the second mowing was in hand, and 


324 


ELSIE VENNER. 


the brown, wet-faced men were following up the 
scythes as they chased the falling waves of grass, 
(falling as the waves fall on sickle-curved beach- 
es ; the foam-flowers dropping as the grass-flow'erg 
drop, — with sharp semivowel consonantal sounds 
/rs/i, — for that is the way the sea talks, and 
leaves all pure vowel-sounds for the winds to 
breathe over it, and all mutes to the unyielding 
earth,) — about this time of over-ripe midsummer, 
the life of Elsie seemed fullest of its malign and 
restless instincts. This was the period of the 
year when the Rockland people were most cau- 
tious of wandering in the leafier coverts which 
skirted the base of The Mountain, and the farm- 
ers liked to wear thick, long boots, whenever they 
went into the bushes. But Elsie was never so 
much given to roaming over The Mountain as 
at this season ; and as she had grown more abso- 
lute and uncontrollable, she was as like to take 
the night as the day for her rambles. 

At this season, too, all her peculiar tastes in 
dress and ornament came out in a more striking 
way than at other times. She was never so 
superb as then, and never so threatening in her 
scowling beauty. The barred skirts she always 
fancied showed sharply beneath her diaphanous 
muslins ; the diamonds often glittered on her 
breast as if for her own pleasure rather than tc 
dazzle others; the asp-like bracelet hardly left 
her arm. She was never seen without some 
Uecklace, — either the golden cord she wore at the 


ELSIE VENNER. 


325 


great party, or a chain of mosaics, or simply a 
ring of golden scales. Some said that Elsie al- 
ways slept in a necklace, and that when she died 
she was to be buried in one. It was a fancy 
of hers, — but many thought there was a reason 
for it. 

Nobody watched Elsie with a more searching 
eye fhan her cousin, Dick Venner. He had kept 
more out of her way of late, it is true, but there 
was not a movement she made which he did not 
carefully observe just so far as he could without 
exciting her suspicion. It was plain enough to 
him that the road to fortune was before him, and 
that the first thing was to marry Elsie. What 
course he should take with her, or with others 
interested, after marrying her, need not be decided 
in a hurry. 

He had now done all he could expect to do at 
present in the way of conciliating the other mem- 
bers of the household. The girl’s father tolerated 
him, if he did not even like him. Whether he 
suspected his project or not Dick did not feel 
sure; but it was something to have got a foot- 
hold in the house, and to have overcome any 
prepossession against him which his uncle might 
have entertained. To be a good listener and a 
bad billiard-player was not a very great sacrifice 
to effect this object. Then old Sophy could hard- 
ly help feeling well-disposed towards him, after 
the gifts he had bestowed on her and the court 
he had payed her. These were the only persons 


826 


ELSIE VENNER. 


on the place of much importance to gain over 
The people employed about the house and farm* 
lands had little to do with Elsie, except to obey 
her without questioning her commands. 

Mr. Richard began to think of reopening his 
second parallel. But he had lost something of 
the coolness with which he had begun his system 
of operations. The more he had reflected upon 
the matter, the more he had convinced himself 
that this was his one great chance in life. If he 
suffered this girl to escape him, such an oppor- 
tunity could hardly, in the nature of things, pre- 
sent itself a second time. Only one life between 
Elsie and her fortune, — and lives are so uncer- 
tain ! The girl might not suit him as a wife. 
Possibly. Time enough to find out after he had 
got her. In short, he must have the property, and 
Elsie Venner, as she was to go with it, — and then, 
if he found it convenient and agreeable to lead a 
virtuous life, he would settle down and raise chil- 
dren and vegetables; but if he found it incon- 
venient and disagreeable, so much the worse for 
those who made it so. Like many other persons, 
he was not principled against virtue, provided vir- 
tue were a better investment than its opposite ; 
but he knew that there might be contingencies in 
which the property would be better without its in- 
cumbrances, and he contemplated this conceivable 
problem in the light of all its possible solutions. 

One thing Mr. Richard could not conceal frorr 
uimseLf: Elsie had some new cause of indiffei 


ELSIE VENNER. 


327 


mce, at least, if not of aversion to him. With 
the acuteness which persons who make a sole 
ousiness of their own interest gain by practice, so 
that fortune-hunters are often shrewd where real 
lovers are terribly simple, he fixed at once on the 
young man up at the school wheie the girl had 
been going of late, as probably at the bottom of 
it. 

“ Cousin Elsie in love ! ” so he communed with 
himself upon his lonely pillow. “ In love with a 
Yankee school-master! What else can it be? 
Let him look out for himself! He’ll stand but 
a bad chance between us. What makes you 
think she’s in love with him ? Met her walking 
with him. Don’t like her looks and ways; — 
she’s thinking about something, anyhow. Where 
does she get those books she is reading so often ? 
Not out of our library, that’s certain. If I could 
tiave ten minutes’ peep into her chamber now, I 
would find out where she got them, and what 
mischief she was up to.” 

At that instant, as if some tributary demon had 
heard his wish, a shape which could be none but 
Elsie’s flitted through a gleam of moonlight into 
the shadow of the trees. She was setting out on 
one of her midnight rambles. 

Dick felt his heart stir in its place, and presently 
his cheeks flushed with the old longing for an 
adventure. It was not much to invade a young 
girl’s deserted chamber, but it would amuse a 
wakeful hour, and tell him some little matters he 


ELSIE VENDER. 


m 

wanted to know. The chamber he slept in was 
over the room which Elsie chiefly occupied at 
this season. There was no great risk of his being 
seen or heard, if he ventured down-stairs to her 
apartment. 

Mr. Richard Venner, in the pursuit of his inter- 
esting project, arose and lighted a lamp. He 
wrapped himself in a dressing-gown and thrust 
his feet into a pair of cloth slippers. He stole 
carefully down the stair, and arrived safely at the 
door of Elsie’s room. The young lady had taken 
the natural precaution to leave it fastened, carry- 
ing the key with her, no doubt, — unless, indeed, 
she had got out by the window, which was not 
far from the ground. Dick could get in at this 
window easily enough, but he did not like the 
idea of leaving his footprints in the flower-bed 
just under it. He returned to his own chamber, 
and held a council of war with himself. 

He put his head out of his own window and 
looked at that beneath. It was open. He then 
went to one of his trunks, which he unlocked, and 
began carefully removing its contents. What 
these were we need not stop to mention, — only 
remarking that there wera dresses of various pat 
terns, which might afford an agreeable series ol 
changes, and in certain contingencies prove emi- 
nently useful. After removing a few of these, he 
thrust his hand to the very bottom of the remain 
big pile and drew out a coiled strip of leather 
many yards in length, ending in a noose, — a 


ELSIE VENNER. 


329 


tough, well-seasoned lasso^ looking as if it had 
seen service and was none the worse for it. He 
uiiGoiled a few yards of this and fastened it to the 
knob of a door. Then he threw the loose end 
out of the window so that it should hang by the 
open casement of Elsie’s room. By this he let 
himself down opposite her window, and with a 
slight effort swung himself inside the room. He 
lighted a match, found a candle, and, having 
lighted that, looked curiously about him, as Clo- 
dius might have done when he smuggled himself 
in among the Vestals. 

Elsie’s room was almost as peculiar as her 
dress and ornaments. It was a kind of museum 
of objects, such as the woods are full of to those 
who have eyes to see them, but many of them 
such as only few could hope to reach, even if 
they knew where to look for them. Crows’ nests, 
which are never found but in the tall trees, com- 
monly enough in the forks of ancient hemlocks^ 
eggs of rare birds, which must have taken a quick 
eye and a hard climb to find and get hold of, 
mosses and ferns of unusual aspect, and quaint 
monstrosities of vegetable growth, such as Nature 
delights in, showed that Elsie had her tastes and 
fancies like any naturalist or poet. 

Nature, when left to her own freaks in the 
forest, is grotesque and fanciful to the verge of 
dcense, and beyond it. The foliage of trees does 
Dot always require clipping to make it look like 
an image of life. From those windows at Canoa 


$30 


ELSIE VENNER. 


Meadow, among the mountains, we could see at 
summer long a lion rampant, a Shanghai chicken, 
and General Jackson on horseback, done by Na- 
ture in green leaves, each with a single tree. But 
to Nature’s tricks with boughs and roots and 
smaller vegetable growths there is no end. Hei 
fancy is infinite, and her humor not always re- 
fined. There is a perpetual reminiscence of ani- 
mal life in her rude caricatures, which sometimes 
actually reach the point of imitating the complete 
human figure, as in that extraordinary specimen 
which nobody will believe to be genuine, except 
the men of science, and of which the discreet 
reader may have a glimpse by application in the 
proper quarter. » 

Elsie had gathered so many of these sculpture- 
like monstrosities, that one might have thought 
she had robbed old Sophy’s grandfather of his 
fetishes. They helped to give her room a kind of 
enchanted look, as if a witch had her home in it. 
Over the fireplace was a long, staff-like branch, 
strangled in the spiral coils of one of those vines 
which strain the smaller trees in their clinging 
embraces, sinking into the bark until the parasite 
becomes almost identified with its support. With 
these sylvan curiosities were blended objects of 
art, some of them not less singular, but others 
showing a love for the beautiful in form and color 
such as a girl of fine organization and nice cuL 
ture might naturally be expected to feel and to 
Wdulgej in adorning her apartment. 


ELSIE VENNER. 


331 


All these objects, pictures, bronzes, vases, and 
the rest, did not detain Mr. Richard Venner very 
long, whatever may have been his sensibilities to 
art. He was more curious about books and pa- 
pers. A copy of Keats lay on the table. He 
opened it and read the name of Bernard G. 
Lang don on the blank leaf. An envelope was 
on the table with Elsie’s name written in a simi- 
lar hand ; but the envelope was empty, and he 
could not find the note it contained. Her desk 
was locked, and it would not be safe to tamper 
with it. He had seen enough ; the girl received 
books and notes from this fellow up at the school, 
— this usher, this Yankee quill-driver; — he was 
aspiring to become the lord of the Dudley do- 
main, then, was he ? 

Elsie had been reasonably careful. She had 
locked up her papers, whatever they might be. 
There was little else that promised to reward his 
curiosity, but he cast his eye on everything. 
There was a clasp-Bible among her books. Dick 
wondered if she ever unclasped it. There was 
a book of hymns ; it had her name in it, and 
looked as if it might have been often read ; — 
what the diablo had Elsie to do with hymns ? 

Mr Richard Venner was in an observing and 
analytical state of mind, it will be noticed, or he 
might perhaps have been touched with the inno- 
cent betrayals of the poor girl’s chamber. Had 
she, after all, some human tenderness in her 
aeart ? That was not the way he put the ques* 


332 


ELSIE VENNEK. 


tion, — but whelhei she would take seriously ic 
this schoolmaster, and if she did, what would be 
the neatest and surest and quickest way of put- 
ting a stop to all that nonsense. All this, how- 
ever, he could think over more safely in his own 
quarters. So he stole softly to the window, and, 
catching the end of the leathern thong, regained 
his own chamber and drew in the lasso. 

It needs only a little jealousy to set a man on 
who is doubtful in love or wooing, or to make 
him take hold of his courting in earnest. As 
soon as Dick had satisfied himself that the young 
schoolmaster was his rival in Elsie’s good graces, 
his whole thoughts concentrated themselves more 
than ever on accomplishing his great design of 
securing her for himself. There was no time to 
be lost. He must come into closer relations with 
her, so as to withdraw her thoughts from this fel- 
low, and to find out more exactly what was the 
state of her affections, if she had any. So he 
began to court her company again, to propose 
riding with her, to sing to her, to join her when- 
ever she was strolling about the grounds, to make 
himself agreeable, according to the ordinary un- 
derstanding of that phrase, in every way which 
seemed to promise a chance for succeeding in 
that amiable effort. 

The girl treated him more capriciously than 
ever. She would be sullen and silent, or she 
would draw back fiercely at some harmless word 
or gesture, or she would look at him with he* 


ELSIE VENNER. 


333 


eyes narrowed in such a strange way and with 
such a wicked light in them that Dick swore to 
himself they were too much for him, and would 
leave her for the moment. Yet she tolerated him, 
almost as a matter of necessity, and sometimes 
seemed to take a kind of pleasure in trying her 
power upon him. This he soon found out, and 
humored her in the fancy that she could exercise 
a kind of fascination over him, — though there 
were times in which he actually felt an influence 
he could not understand, an effect of some pecul- 
iar expression about her, perhaps, but still cen- 
tring in those diamond eyes of hers which it 
made one feel so curiously to look into. 

Whether Elsie saw into his object or not was 
more than he could tell. His idea was, after 
having conciliated the good-will of all about her 
as far as possible, to make himself first a habit 
and then a necessity with the girl, — not to spring 
any trap of a declaration upon her until tolerance 
had grown into such a degree of inclination as 
her nature was like to admit. He had succeeded 
in the first part of his plan. He was at liberty to 
prolong his visit at his own pleasure. This was 
not strange ; these three persons, Dudley Venner, 
his daughter, and his nephew, represented all that 
remained of an old and honorable family. Had 
Elsie been like other girls, her father might have 
been less willing to entertain a young fellow like 
Dick as an inmate ; but he had long outgrown all 
the slighter apprehensions wnich he might have 


ELSIE YENWER. 


had in common with all parents, and followed 
rather than led the imperious instincts of his 
daughter. It was not a question of sentiment, 
but of life and death, or more than that, — some 
dark ending, perhaps, which would close the his- 
tory of his race with disaster and evil report upon 
the lips of all coming generations. 

As to the thought of his nephew’s making love 
to his daughter, it had almost passed from his 
mind. He had been so long in the habit of look- 
ing at Elsie as outside of all common influences 
and exceptional in the law of her nature, that it 
was difficult for him to think of her as a girl to 
be fallen in love with. Many persons are sur- 
prised, when others court their female relatives ; 
they know them as good young or old women 
enough, — aunts, sisters, nieces, daughters, what- 
ever they may be, — but never think of anybody’s 
falling in love with them, any more than of their 
being struck by lightning. But in this case there 
were special reasons, in addition to the common 
family delusion, — reasons which seemed to make 
it impossible that she should attract a suitor. 
Who would dare to marry Elsie ? No, let her 
iiave the pleasure, if it was one, at any rate the 
wholesome excitement, of companionship ; it 
might save her from lapsing into melancholy oi 
a worse form of madness. Dudley Venner had 
a kind of superstition, too, that, if Elsie could 
only outlive three septenaries, twenty-one years, 
ic that, according to the prevalent idea, her whole 


ELSIE TENNER. 


335 


frame would have been thrice made over, count- 
ing from her birth, she would revert to the natural 
standard of health of mind and feelings from 
which she had been so long perverted. The 
thought of any other motive than love being 
sufficient to induce Richard to become her suitor 
had not occurred to him. He had married eariy, 
at that happy period when interested motives are 
least apt to influence the choice ; and his single 
idea of marriage was, that it was the union of 
persons naturally drawn towards each other by 
some mutual attraction. Very simple, perhaps ; 
but he had lived lonely for many years since his 
wife’s death, and judged the hearts of others, 
most of all of his brother’s son, by his own. He 
had often thought whether, in case of Elsie’s dy- 
ing or being necessarily doomed to seclusion, he 
might not adopt this nephew and make him his 
heir ; but it had not occurred to him that Richard 
might wish to become his son-in-law for the sake 
of his property. 

It is very easy to criticise other people’s modes 
of dealing with their children. Outside observers 
^ee results ; parents see processes. They notice 
the trivial movements and accents which betray 
the blood of this or that ancestor ; they can de- 
tect the irrepressible movement of hereditary im- 
pulse in looks and acts which mean nothing to 
the common observer. To be a parent is almost 
to be a fatalist. This boy sits with legs crossed, 
just as his uncle used to whom he never saw 


336 


ELSIE VENIS'ER. 


his grandfathers both died before he was born, 
but he has the movement of the ej^ebrows which 
we remember in one of them, and the gusty tem- 
per of the other. 

These are things parents can see, and which 
they must take account of in education, but 
which few except parents can be expected to 
really understand. Here and there a sagacious 
person, old, or of middle age, who has iriangu^ 
lated a race, that is, taken three or more observa- 
tions from the several standing-places of three 
different generations, can tell pretty nearly the 
range of possibilities and the limitations of a 
child, actual or potential, of a given stock, — 
errors excepted always, because children of the 
same stock are not bred just alike, because the 
traits of some less known ancestor are liable to 
break out at any time, and because each human 
being has, after all, a small fraction of individu- 
ality about him which gives him a flavor, so that 
ne is distinguishable from others by his friends 
or in a court of justice, and which occasionally 
makes a genius or a saint or a criminal of him 
Tt is well that young persons cannot read these 
fatal oracles of Nature. Blind impulse is hei 
highest wisdom, after all. We make our great 
jump, and then she takes the bandage off oui 
eyes. That is the way the broad sea-level of 
average is maintained, and the physiological 
democracy is enabled to fight against the prin 
eiple of selection which would disinherit all th# 


ELSIE YEITNER. 


837 


cveaker children. The magnificent constituency 
of mediocrities of which the world is made up, 
-—the people without biographies, whose lives 
have made a clear solution in the fluid men- 
struum of time, instead of being precipitated in 

ihe opaque sediment of history 

But this is a narrative, and not a disquiadtioiL 
22 


£LiSI£ VKNNEB* 


Bad 


CHAPTER XX. 

FROM. "WITHOUT AND FROM WITHIN. 

There were not wanting people who accused 
Dudley Venner of weakness and bad judgment 
in his treatment of his daughter. Some were of 
opinion that the great mistake was in not “ break- 
ing her will ” when she was a little child. There 
was nothing the matter with her, they said, but 
that she had been spoiled by indulgence. If they 
had had the charge of her, they’d have brought 
her down. She’d got the upperhand of her fa- 
ther now ; but if he’d only taken hold of her in 
season ! There are people who think that every- 
thing may be done, if the doer, be he educator oi 
physician, be only called “ in season.” No doubt, 
— but in season would often be a hundred or 
two years before the child was born ; and people 
never send so early as that. 

The father of Elsie Venner knew his duties 
and his difficulties too well to trouble himself 
about anything others might think or sa}. So 
soon as he found that he could not govern his 
child, he gave his life up to following her and 
protecting her as far as he could. It was a stern 


ELSIE VENNER. 


339 


and terrible trial for a man of acute sensibility; 
and not without force of intellect and will, and 
the manly ambition for himself and his family- 
name which belonged to his endowments and 
his position. Passive endurance is the hardest 
trial to persons of such a nature. 

What made it still more a long martyrdom 
was the necessity for bearing his cross in utter 
loneliness. He could not tell his griefs. He 
could not talk of them even with those who 
knew their secret spring. His minister had the 
unsympathetic nature which is common in the 
meaner sort of devotees, — persons who mistake 
spiritual selfishness for sanctity, and grab at the 
infinite prize of the great Future and Elsewhere 
with the egotism they excommunicate in its hardly 
more odious forms of avarice and self-indulgence. 
How could he speak with the old physician and 
the old black woman about a sorrow and a teiTor 
which but to name was to strike dumb the lips of 
Consolation ? 

In the dawn of his manhood he had found that 
second consciousness for which young men and 
young women go about looking into each other’s 
faces, with their sweet, artless aim playing in 
every feature, and making them beautiful to 
each other, as to all of us. He had found his 
other self early, before he had grown weary in the 
search and wasted his freshness in vain longings : 
the lot of many, perhaps we may say of most, 
who infringe the patent of our social order by in- 


540 


ELSIE VENNER. 


truding themselves into a life already upon half 
allowance of the necessary luxuries of existence, 
The life he had led for a brief space was not only 
beautiful in outward circumstance, as old Sophy 
had described it to the Reverend Doctor. It Avai 
that delicious process of the tuning of two soula 
tc each other, string by string, not without little 
half-pleasing discords now and then when some 
chord in one or the other proves to be over- 
strained or over-lax, but always approaching 
nearer and nearer to harmony, until they be- 
come at last as two instruments with a single 
voice. Something more than a year of this bliss- 
ful doubled consciousness had passed over him 
when he found himself once more alone, — alone, 
save for the little diamond-eyed child lying in the 
old black woman’s arms, wdth the coral necklace 
round her throat and the rattle in her hand. 

He would not die by his own act. It was not 
the way in his family. There may have been 
other, perhaps better reasons, but this was 
enough ; he did not come of suicidal stock. 
He must live for this child’s sake, at any rate; 
and yet, — oh, yet, who could tell with what 
thoughts he looked upon her? Sometimes her 
little features would look placid, and something 
like a smile would steal over them ; then all his 
tender feelings would rush up into his eyes, and 
ae would put his arms out to take her from the 
old woman, — but all at once her eyes would 
narrow and she would throw her head back 


ELSIE VENDER. 


341 


and a snudder would seize him as he stooped 
over his child, — he could not look upon her, — • 
he could not touch his lips to her cheek; nay 
there would sometimes come into his soul such 
frightful suggestions that he would hurry from 
the room lest the hinted thought should become 
a momentary madness and he should lift his 
hand against the hapless infant which owed him 
life. 

In those miserable days he used to wander all 
over The Mountain in his restless endeavor to 
seek some relief for inward suffering in outv/ard 
action. He had no thought of throwing himself 
from the summit of any of the broken cliffs, but 
he clambered over them recklessly, as having no 
particular care for his life. Sometimes he would 
go into the accursed district where the venomous 
reptiles were always to be dreaded, and court 
their worst haunts, and Idll all he could come 
near with a kind of blind fury which was strange 
'in a person of his gentle nature. 

One overhanging cliff was a favorite haunt 
of his. It frowned upon his home beneath in 
a very menacing way; he noticed slight seams 
and fissures that looked ominous; — what would 
happen, if it broke off some time or other and 
came crashing down on the fields and roofs 
below? He thought of such a possible catas- 
trophe with a singular indifference, in fact with 
a feeling almost like pleasure. It would be such 
a swift and thorough solution of this great prob* 


542 


ELSIE VENNER. 


lem of life he was working out in ever-recurring 
daily anguish ! The remote possibility of such 
a catastrophe had frightened some timid dwellers 
beneath The Mountain to other places of resi- 
dence ; here the danger was most imminent, and 
yet he loved to dwell upon the chances of its 
occurrence. Danger is often the best counter- 
iiritant in cases of mental suffering; he found 
a solace in careless exposure of his life, and 
learned to endure the trials of each day better 
by dwelling in imagination on the possibility 
that it might be the last for him and the home 
that was his. 

Time, the great consoler, helped these influ- 
ences, and he gradually fell into more easy and 
less dangerous habits of life. He ceased from 
his more perilous rambles. He thought less of 
the danger from the great overhanging rocks and 
forests ; they had hung there for centuries; it was 
not very likely they would crash or slide in his 
time. He became accustomed to all Elsie’s 
strange looks and ways. Old Sophy dressed 
her with ruffles round her neck, and hunted up 
the red coral branch with silver bells which the 
little toothless Dudleys had bitten upon for a 
hundred years. By an infinite effort, her father 
forced himself to become the companion of this 
child, for whom he had such a mingled feeling 
but whose presence was always a trial to hinj 
and often a terror. 

At a cost which no human being could esti 


ELSIE VENNER. 


343 


mate, he had done his duty, and in some degree 
reaped his reward. Elsie grew up with a kind of 
hlial feeling for him, such as her nature was capa- 
ble of. She never would obey him ; that was not 
to be looked for. Commands, threats, punish- 
ments, were out of the question with her; the 
mere physical effects of crossing her will betrayed 
themselves in such changes of expression and 
manner that it would have been senseless to at- 
tempt to govern her in any such way. Leaving 
her mainly to herself, she could be to some extent 
indirectly influenced, — not otherwise. She called 
her father “ Dudley,” as if he had been her brother. 
She ordered everybody and would be ordered by 
none. 

Who could know all these things, except the 
few people of the household? What wonder, 
therefore, that ignorant and shallow persons laid 
the blame on her father of those peculiarities 
which were freely talked about, — of those darker 
tendencies which were hinted of in whispers ? 
To all this talk, so far as it reached him, he was 
supremely indifferent, not only with the indiffer- 
ence which all gentlemen feel to the gossip of 
their inferiors, but with a charitable calmness 
which did not wonder or blame. He knew that 
bis position was not simply a difficult, but an im- 
possible one, and schooled himself to bear his des- 
tiny as well as he might, and report himself only 
-it Headquarters. 

He had grown gentle under this discipline 


544 


ELSIE VENNER. 


His hair was jast beginning to be touched witL 
silver, and his expression was that of habitua* 
sadness and anxiety. He had no counsellor, as 
we have seen, to turn to, who did not know eithei 
too much or too little. He had no heart to rest 
upon and into which he might unburden himself 
of the secrets and the sorrows that were aching in 
his own breast. Yet he had not allowed himself 
to run to waste in the long time since he was left 
alone to his trials and fears. He had resisted the 
seductions which always beset solitary men with 
restless brains overwrought by depressing agen- 
cies. He disguised no misery to himself with the 
lying delusion of wine. He sought no sleep from 
narcotics, though he lay with throbbing, wide-open 
eyes through all the weary hours of the night 
It was understood between Dudley Venner and 
old Doctor Kittredge that Elsie was a subject of 
occasional medical observation, on account of cer- 
tain mental peculiarities which might end in a 
permanent affection of her reason. Beyond this 
nothing was said, whatever may have been in the 
mind of either. But Dudley Venner had studied 
Elsie’s case in the light of all the books he could 
find which might do anything towards explaining 
it. As in all cases where men meddle with med- 
ical science for a special purpose, having no pre- 
vious acquaintance with it, his imagination found 
what it wanted in the books he read, and adjusted 
it to the facts before him. So it was he came tc 
cherish those two fancies before alluded to : that 


ELSIE VENKER. 


345 


the ominous birth-mark she had carried from in 
fancy might fade and become obliterated, and that 
the age of complete maturity might be signalized 
by an entire change in her physical and mental 
state. He held these vague hopes as all of us 
nurse our only half-believed illusions. Not for 
the world would he have questioned his sagacious 
old medical friejid as to the probability or possi- 
bility of their being true. We are very shy of 
asking questions of those who know enough to 
destroy with on-^ word the hopes we live on. 

In this life of comparative seclusion to which 
the father had doomed himself for the sake of his 
child, he had found time for large and varied 
reading. The learned Judge Thornton confessed 
himself surprised at the extent of Dudley Ven- 
ner’s information. Doctor Kittredge found that 
he was in advance of him in the knowledge of 
recent physiological discoveries. He had taken 
pains to become acquainted with agricultural 
chemistry ; and the neighboring farmers owed him 
some useful hints about the management of their 
land. He renewed his old acquaintance with the 
classic authors. He loved to warm his pulses 
with Homer and calm them down with Horace. 
He received all manner of new books and period- 
icals, and gradually gained an interest in the 
events of the passing time. Yet he remained al- 
most a hermit, not absolutely refusing to see his 
neighbors, nor ever churlish towards them, but oa 
.he other hand not cultivating any intimate rela- 
tions with them. 


546 


ELSIE VENNER. 


He had retired from the world a young man, 
little more than a youth, indeed, with sentiments 
and aspirations all of them suddenly extinguished. 
The first had bequeathed him a single huge sor- 
row, the second a single trying duty. In due 
time the anguish had lost something of its poig- 
nancy, the light of earlier and happier memories 
had begun to struggle with and to soften its thick 
darkness, and even that duty which he had con- 
fronted with such an effort had become an endur- 
able habit. 

At a period of life when many have been living 
on the capital of their acquired knowledge and 
their youthful stock of sensibilities until their 
intellects are really shallower and their hearts 
emptier than they were at twenty, Dudley Ven- 
ner was stronger in thought and tenderer in soul 
than in the first freshness of his youth, when he 
counted but half his present years. He had en- 
tered that period which marks the decline of men 
who have ceased growing in knowledge and 
strength : from forty to fifty a man must move 
upward, or the natural falling off in the vigor of 
life will carry him rapidly downward. At this 
time his inward nature was richer and deeper 
than in any earlier period of his life. If he could 
only be summoned to action, he was capable of 
noble service. If his sympathies could only find 
an outlet, he was never so capable of love as 
low ; for his natural affections had been gather- 
vng in the course of all these years, and the trace* 


ELSIE VENNER. 


347 


d 1 that ineffaceable calamity of his life were soft- 
ened and partially hidden by new growths of 
thought and feeling, as the wreck left by a moun- 
tain-slide is covered over by the gentle intrusion 
of the soft-stemmed herbs which will prepare it 
for the stronger vegetation that will bring it 
once more into harmony with the peaceful slopes 
around it. 

Perhaps Dudley Venner had not gained so 
much in worldly wisdom as if he had been more 
in society and less in his study. The indulgence 
with which he treated his nephew was, no doubt, 
imprudent. A man more in the habit of dealing 
with men would have been more guarded with a 
person with Dick’s questionable story and unques- 
tionable physiognomy. But he was singularly 
unsuspicious, and his natural kindness was an 
additional motive to the wish for introducing 
some variety into the routine of Elsie’s life. 

If Dudley Venner did not know just what he 
wanted at this period of his life, there were a 
great many people in the town of Rockland who 
thought they did know. He had been a widower 
long enough, — nigh twenty year, wa’n’t it ? 
He’d been aout to Spraowles’s party, — there 
wa’n’t anything to hender him why he shouldn’t 
stir raound I’k other folks. Whht was the reason 
he didn’t go abaout to taown-meetin’s ’n’ Sahbath- 
meetin’s, ’n’ lyceums, ’n’ school ’xaminations, ’n' 
B’prise-parties, ’n’ funerals, — and other entertain 
ments where the still-faced two-story folks were in 


348 


ELSIE VENNER. 


the habit of looking round to see if any of the 
mansion-house gentry were present? — Fac’ was, 
he was livin’ too lonesome daown there at the 
mansion-haouse. Why shouldn’t he make up to 
the Jedge’s daughter ? She was genteel enough 
for him and — let’s see, haow old was she ? 
Seven-’n’- twenty, — no, six-’n’-twenty, — born the 
same year we buried aour little Anny INIari’. 

There was no possible objection to this arrange- 
ment, if the parties interested had seen fit to 
make it or even to think of it. But “ Portia,” as 
some of the mansion-house people called her, did 
not happen to awaken the elective affinities of the 
lonely widower. He met her once in a while, and 
said to himself that she was a good specimen of 
the grand style of woman ; and then the image 
came back to him of a woman not quite so large, 
not quite so imperial in her port, not quite so in- 
cisive in her speech, not quite so judicial in her 
opinions, but with two or three more joints in her 
frame, and two or three soft inflections in her 
voice, which for some absurd reason or other drew 
him to her side and so bewitched him that he told 
her half his secrets and looked into her eyes all 
that he could not tell, in less time than it would 
have taken him to discuss the champion paper of 
the last Quarterly with the admirable “Portia.” 
Ileu^ quanto minus ! How much more was that 
lost image to him than all it left on earth ! 

The study of love is very much like that of 
meteorology. We know that just about so inucli 


ELSIE VENNER. 


849 


faia will fall in a season ; but on what particular 
lay it will shower is more than we can tell. We 
inow that just about so much love will be made 
«very year in a given population ; but who will 
.ain his young affections upon the heart of whom 
.s not known except to the astrologers and for- 
;une-tellers. And why rain falls as it does, and 
why love is made juet as it is, are equally puzzling 
questions. 

The woman a man loves is always his own 
daughter, far more his daughter than the female 
children born to him by the common law of life. 
It is not the outside woman, who takes his name, 
^hat he loves : before her image has reached the 
centre of his consciousness, it has passed through 
fifty many-layered nerve-strainers, been churned 
over by ten thousand pulse-beats, and reacted 
upon by millions of lateral impulses which bandy 
it about through the mental spaces as a reflection 
is sent back and forward in a saloon lined with 
mirrors. With this altered image of the woman 
before him, his preexisting ideal becomes blended. 
The object of his love is in part the offspring of 
her legal parents, but more of her lover^s brain. 
The difference between the real and the ideal ob- 
jects of love must not exceed a fixed maximum. 
The heart’s vision cannot unite them stereoscopi- 
caUy into a single image, if the divergence pass- 
es certain limits. A formidable analogy, much 
in the nature of a proof, with very serious con- 
Bcquences, which moralists and match-makers 


350 


ELSIE VENNER. 


would do well to remember! Double vision 
with the eyes of the heart is a dangerous phys- 
iological state, and may lead to missteps and 
serious fahs. 

Whether Dudley Venner would ever find a 
breathing image near enough to his ideal one, to 
fill the desolate chamber of his heart, or not, was 
very doubtful. Some gracious and gentle wom- 
an, whose influence would steal upon him as the 
first low words of prayer after that interval of 
silent mental supplication known to one of our 
simpler forms of public worship, gliding into his 
consciousness without hurting its old griefs, her- 
self knowing the chastening of sorrow, and sub- 
dued into sweet acquiescence with the Divine wLU, 
— some such woman as this, if Heaven should 
send him such, might call him back to the world 
of happiness, from which he seemed forever ex- 
iled. He could never again be the young lover 
who walked through the garden-alleys all red with 
roses in the old dead and buried June of long ago. 
He could never forget the bride of his youth, 
whose image, growing phantom-like with the 
lapse of years, hovered over him like a dream 
while waking and like a reality in dreams. But 
if it might be in God’s good providence that this 
desolate life should come under the influence of 
human affections once more, what an ecstasy of 
renewed existence was in store for him ! His life 
had not all been buried under that narrow ridge 
tf turf with the white stone at its head. II 


ELSIE VENNER 


851 


Beemed so for a while ; but it was not and could 
not and ought not to be so. His first passion 
had been a true and pure one ; there was no spot 
or stain upon it. With all his grief there blended 
no cruel recollection of any word or look he 
would have wished to forget. All those little dif- 
ferences, such as young married people with any 
individual flavor in their characters must have, if 
they are tolerably mated, had only added to the 
music of existence, as the lesser discords admitted 
into some perfect symphony, fitly resolved, add 
richness and strength to the whole harmonious 
movement. It was a deep wound that Fate had 
inflicted on him ; nay, it seemed like a mortal 
one ; but the weapon was clean, and its edge was 
smooth. Such wounds must heal with time in 
healthy natures, whatever a false sentiment may 
say, by the wise and beneficent law of our being. 
The recollection of a deep and true affection is 
rather a divine nourishment for a life to grow 
strong upon than a poison to destroy it. 

Dudley Venner’s habitual sadness could not be 
laid wholly to his early bereavement. It was 
partly the result of the long struggle between nat- 
ural affection and duty, on one side, and the in- 
voluntary tendencies these had to overcome, on 
the other, — between hope and fear, so long in 
conflict that despair itself would have been like 
an anodyne, and he would have slept upon some 
final catastrophe with the heavy sleep of a bank- 
-upt after his failure is proclaimed. Alas ! some 


ELSIE VENNER 


852 

new affection might perhaps rekindle the fires ol 
youth in his heart; but what power could calm 
that haggard terror of the parent which rose with 
every morning’s sun and watched with every even- 
ing star, — what power save alone that of him 
who comes bearing the inverted torch, and leav- 
ing after him only the ashes printed with Ms foot- 
steps ? 


P.r.3IE VENNER. 


853 


CHAPTER XXL 

THE WIDOW KOWENS GIVES A TEA-PARTT. 

There was a good deal of interest felt, as 
has been said, in the lonely condition of Dud- 
ley Venner in that fine mansion-house of his, and 
with that strange daughter, who would never be 
married, as many people thought, in spite of all 
the stories. The feelings expressed by the good 
folks who dated from the time when they “buried 
aour little Anny MariV^ and others of that home- 
spun stripe, were founded in reason, after all. 
And so it was natural enough that they should 
be shared by various ladies, who, having conju- 
gated the verb to live as far as the preterpluper- 
fect tense, were ready to change one of its vowels 
and begin with it in the present indicative. Un- 
fortunately, there was very little chance of show- 
ing sympathy in its active form for a gentleman 
who kept himself so much out of the way as the 
master of the Dudley Mansion. 

Various attempts had been made, from time to 
time, of late years, to get him out of his study, 
which had, for the most part, proved failures. It 
Was a surprise, therefore, when he was seen at 


354 


ELSIE VENNER. 


tl?e Great Party at the ColoneFs. But it was an 
encouragement to try him again, and the conse- 
quence had been that he had received a number 
of notes inviting him to various smaller enter 
tainments, which, as neither he nor Elsie had any 
fancy for them, he had politely declined. 

Such was the state of things when he received 
an invitation to take tea sociably, with a few 
friends, at Hyacinth Cottage, the residence of 
the Widow Rowens, relict of the late Beeri 
Rowens, Esquire, better known as Major Row- 
ens. Major Rowens was at the time of his 
decease a promising officer in the militia, in 
the direct line of promotion, as his waistband 
was getting tighter every year; and, as all the 
world knows, the militia-officer who splits off 
most buttons and fills the largest sword-belt 
stands the best chance of rising, or, perhaps we 
might say, spreading, to be General. 

Major Rowens united in his person certain 
other traits which help a man to eminence in 
the branch of public service referred to. He ran 
to high colors, to wide whiskers, to open pores 
ae had the saddle-leather sldn common in Eng- 
lishmen, rarer in Americans, — never found in 
che Brahmin caste, oftener in the military and 
the commodores: observing people know what 
is meant ; blow the seed-arrows from the white- 
kid-looking button which holds them on a dan 
delion-stalk, and the pricked-pincushion surface 
shows you what to look for. He had the loud 


ELSIE VENNER. 


355 


gruff voice which implies the right to com- 
mand. He had the thick hand, stubbed fin- 
gers, with bristled pads between their joints, 
square, broad thumb-nails, and sturdy limbs, 
which mark a constitution made to use in 
rough out-door work. He had the never-failing 
predilection for showy switch-tailed horses that 
step high, and sidle about, and act as if they 
were going to do something fearful the next min- 
ute, in the face of awed and admiring multi- 
tudes gathered at mighty musters or imposing 
cattle-shows. He had no objection, either, to 
holding the reins in a wagon behind another 
kind of horse, — a slouching, listless beast, with 
a strong slant to his shoulder and a notable 
depth to his quarter and an emphatic angle at 
the hock, who commonly walked or lounged 
along in a lazy trot of five or six miles an hour ; 
but, if a lively colt happened to come rattling 
up alongside, or a brandy-faced old horse-jockey 
took the road to show off a fast nag, and threw 
his dust into the Major’s face, would pick his 
legs up all at once, and straighten his body out, 
and swing off into a three-minute gait, in a way 
that “ Old Blue ” himself need not have been 
ashamed of. 

For some reason which must be left to the 
next generation of professors to find out, the men 
who are knowing in horse-flesh have an eye also 
for, let a long dash separate the brute crea- 

tion from the angelic being now to be named,— 


556 


ELSIE VENNER. 


for lovely woman. Of this fact there can be 
no possible doubt; and therefore you shall no- 
tice, that, if a fast horse trots before two, one 
of the twain is apt to be a pretty bit of mulieb- 
rity, with shapes to her, and eyes flying about 
in all directions. 

Major Rowens, at that time Lieutenant of 
the Rockland Fusileers, had driven and “ traded ” 
horses not a few before he turned his acquired 
skill as a judge of physical advantages in another 
direction. He knew a neat, snug hoof, a deli- 
cate pastern, a broad haunch, a deep chest, a 
close ribbed-up barrel, as well as any other man 
in the town. He was not to be taken in by 
your thick-jointed, heavy-headed cattle, without 
any go to them, that suit a country-parson, nor 
yet by the “ gaanted-up,’^ long-legged animals, 
with all their constitutions bred out of them, 
such as rich greenhorns buy and cover up with 
their plated trappings. 

Whether his equine experience was of any use 
to him in the selection of the mate with whom 
be was to go in double harness so long as they 
both should live, we need not stop to question. 
At any rate, nobody could find fault with the 
points of Miss Marilla Van DeUsen, to whom he 
otlered the privilege of becoming Mrs. Rowens. 
The Van must have been crossed out of hef 
blood, for she was an out-and-out brunette 
with hair and eyes black enough for a Mo 
hawk’s daughter. A fine style of woman, witfl 


ELSIE VENNER. 


357 


rery striking tints and outlines, — an excellent 
match for the Lieutenant, except for one thing. 
She was marked by Nature for a widow. She 
was evidently got up for mourning, and never 
looked so well as in deep black, with jet orna- 
ments. 

The man who should dare to marry her would 
doom himself; for how could she become the 
widow she was bound to be, unless he would re- 
tire and give her a chance ? The Lieutenant 
lived, however, as we have seen, to become Cap- 
tain and then Major, with prospects of further 
advancement. But Mrs. Rowens often said she 
should never look well in colors. At last her des- 
tiny fulfilled itself, and the justice of Nature was 
vindicated. Major Rowens got overheated gallop- 
ing about the field on the day of the Great Mus- 
ter, and had a rush of blood to the head, according 
to the common report, — at any rate, something 
which stopped him short in his career of expan- 
sion and promotion, and established Mrs. Rowens 
in her normal condition of widowhood. 

The Widow Rowens was now in the full 
bloom of ornamental sorrow. A very shallow 
crape bonnet, frilled and froth-like, allowed the 
parted raven hair to show its glossy smooth- 
ness. A jet pin heaved upon her bosom with 
every sigh of memory, or emotion of unknown 
origin. Jet bracelets shone with every movement 
of her slender hands, cased in close-fitting black 
gloves. Her sable dress was ridged with raani* 


558 


ELSIE VENNER. 


fold flounces, from beneath which a small foo^ 
showed itself from time to time, clad in the same 
hue of mourning. Everything about her was 
dark, except the whites of her eyes and the 
enamel of her teeth. The effect was complete. 
Gray’s Elegy was not a more perfect composi- 
tion. 

Much as the Widow was pleased with the cos- 
tume belonging to her condition, she did not 
disguise from herself that under certain circum- 
stances she might be willing to change her name 
again. Thus, for instance, if a gentleman not 
too far gone in maturity, of dignified exterior, 
with an ample fortune, and of unexceptionable 
character, should happen to set his heart upon 
her, and the only way to make him happy was to 
give up her weeds and go into those unbecoming 
colors again for his sake, — why, she felt that it 
was in her nature to make the sacrifice. By a 
singular coincidence it happened that a gentle- 
man was now living in Rockland who united in 
himself all these advantages. Who he was, the 
sagacious reader may very probably have divined. 
Just to see how it looked, one day, having bolted 
her door, and drawn the curtains close, and 
glanced under the sofa, and listened at the key- 
hole to be sure there was nobody in the entry, — 
iust to see how it looked, she had taken out an 
tnvelope and written on the back of it Mrs. Ma* 
'ilia Venner. It made her head swim and hei 
knees tremble. What if she should faint, oi 


ELSIE VENNER. 


359 


die, 01 have a stroke of palsy, and they should 
break into the room and find that name written ? 
How she caught it up and tore it into little 
shreds, and then could not be easy until she had 
burned the small heap of pieces ! But these are 
things which every honorable reader will considei 
imparted in strict confidence. 

I’lie Widow Bowens, though not of the man- 
sion-house set, was among the most genteel of 
the two-story circle, and was in the habit of vis- 
iting some of the great people. In one of these 
visits she met a dashing young fellow with an 
olive complexion at the house of a professional 
gentleman who had married one of the white 
necks and pairs of fat arms from a distinguished 
family before referred to. The professional gen- 
tleman himself was out, but the lady introduced 
the olive-complexioned young man as Mr. Rich- 
ard Venner. 

The Widow was particularly pleased with this 
accidental meeting. Had heard Mr. Venner’s 
name frequently mentioned. Hoped his uncle 
was well, and his charming cousin, — was she as 
original as ever ? Had often admired that charm- 
ing creature he rode : we had had some fine 
horses. Had never got over her taste for riding, 
but could find nobody that liked a good long gal- 
lop since— ^ — well — she couidnT help wishing 
she was alongside of nim, the other day, when 
ihe saw him dashing by, just at twilight. 

The Widow paused ; lifted a flimsy handker- 


ELSIE VENNER. 


m 

chief with a very deep black border so as io play 
the jet bracelet; pushed the tip of her slender foot 
beyond the lowest of her black flounces ; looked 
up ; looked down ; looked at Mr. Richard, the 
very picture of artless simplicity, — as represented 
in well-played genteel comedy. 

“ A good bit of stuff,” Dick said to himself, — 
“ and something of it left yet ; caramba ! ” Tht 
Major had not studied points for nothing, and the 
Widow was one of the right sort. The young 
man had been a little restless of late, and was 
willing to vary his routine by picking up an ac- 
quaintance here and there. So he took the Wid- 
ow’s hint. He should like to have a scamper of 
half a dozen miles with her some fine morning. 

The Widow was infinitely obliged ; was not 
sure that she could find any horse in the village 
to suit her ; but it was so kind in him ! Would 
he not call at Hyacinth Cottage, and let her 
thank him again there ? 

Thus began an acquaintance which the Wid- 
ow made the most of, and on the strength of 
which she determined to give a tea-party and 
invite a number of persons of whom we know 
something already. She took a half-sheet of 
note-paper and made out her list as carefully as a 
country “ merchant’s ” “ clerk ” adds up two and 
threepence (New-England nomenclature) and 
twelve and a half cents, figure by figure, and 
fraction by fraction, before he can be sure they 
will make half a dollar, without cheating somo 


ELSIE VENKER. 


361 


body. After much consideration the list reduced 
itself to the following names : ]VIr Richard Ven- 
ner and Mrs. Blanche Creamer, the lady at whose 
house she had met him, — mansion-house breed, 

— but will come, — soft on Dick; Dudley Ven- 
ner, — take care of him herself; Elsie, — Dick 
will see to her, — won’t it fidget the Creamer 
woman to see him round her ? the old Doctor, — 
he’s always handy ; and there’s that young mas- 
ter there, up at the school, — know him well 
enough to ask him, — oh, yes, he’ll come. One, 
two, three, four, five, six, — seven ; not room 
enough, without the leaf in the table ; one place 
empty, if the leaf’s in. Let’s see, — Helen Dar- 
ley, — she’ll do well enough to fill it up, — why, 
yes, just the thing, — light brown hair, blue eyes, 

— won’t my pattern show off well against her ? 
Put her down, — she’s worth her tea and toast 
ten times over, — nobody knows what a “ thun- 
der-and-lightning woman,” as poor Major used to 
nave it, is, till she gets alongside of one of those 
old-maidish girls, with hair the color of brown 
sugar, and eyes like the blue of a teacup. 

The Widow smiled with a feeling of triumph 
at having overcome her difficulties and arranged 
her party, — arose and stood before her glass, 
three-quarters front, one-quarter profile, so as to 
show the whites of the eyes and the down of the 
U])per lip, “ Splendid ! ” said the Widow — and 
fo tell the truth, she was not far out of the way 
and with Helen Darley as a foil anybody would 


562 


ELSIE VENNER. 


know she must be foudroyant and pyramidal, — 
if these French adjectives may be naturalized for 
this one particular exigency. 

So the Widow sent out her notes. The black 
grief which had filled her heart and overflowed in 
surges of crape around her person had left a de* 
posit half an inch wide at the margin of her 
note-paper. Her seal was a small youth with an 
inverted torch, the same on which Mrs. Blanche 
Creamer made her spiteful remark, that she ex- 
pected to see that boy of the Widow’s standing 
on his head yet ; meaning, as Dick supposed, that 
she would get the torch right-side up as soon as 
she had a chance. That was after Dick had 
made the Widow’s acquaintance, and Mrs. 
Creamer had got it into her foolish head that she 
would marry that young fellow, if she could catch 
him. How could he ever come to fancy such a 
quadroon-looking thing as that, she should like to 
know ? 

It is easy enough to ask seven people to a 
party ; but whether they will come or not is an 
open question, as it was in the case of the spirits of 
the vasty deep. If the note issues from a three- 
fetory mansion-house, and goes to two-story ac- 
quaintances, they will all be in an excellent state 
of health, and have much pleasure in accepting 
this very polite invitation. If ttue note is from 
the lady of a two-story family to three-story onjes, 
the former highly respectable person will very 
Drobably find that an endemic complaint is prev 


ELSIE VENNER. 


863 


Mient, not represented in the weekly bills of mor* 
tality, which occasions numerous regrets in the 
bosoms of eminently desirable parties that they 
cannot have the pleasure of and-so-forthing. 

In this case there was room for doubt, — 
mainly as to whether Elsie would take a fancj' 
to come or not. If she should come, her fathel 
would certainly be with her. Dick had promised, 
and thought he could bring Elsie. Of course 
the young schoolmaster will come, and that poor 
tired-out looking Helen, — if only to get out of 
sight of those horrid Peckham wretches. They 
don’t get such invitations every day. The others 
she felt sure of, — all but the old Doctor, — he 
might have some horrid patient or other to visit ; 
tell him Elsie Venner’s going to be there, — he 
always likes to have an eye on her, they say, — 
oh, he’d come fast enough, without any more 
coaxing. 

She wanted the Doctor, particularly. It was 
odd, but she was afraid of Elsie. She felt as if 
she should be safe enough, if the old Doctor 
were there to see to the girl ; and then she 
should have leisure to devote herself more freely 
to the young lady’s father, for whom all her 
wympalhies were in a state of lively excitement. 

It was a long time since the Widow had seen 
so many persons round ner table as she had now 
tnvited. Better have the plates set and see how 
they will fill it up with the leaf in. — A little too 
scattering with only eight plates set ; if she could 


564 


ELSIE VENNER. 


find two more people, now, that would bring 
the chairs a little closer, — snug, you know, — 
which makes the company sociable. The Widow 
thought over her acquaintances. Why ! how 
stupid ! there was her good minister, the same 
who had married her, and might — might — bury 
her for aught she knew, and his granddaughter 
staying with him, — nice little girl, pretty, and not 
old enough to be dangerous; — for the Widow 
had no notion of making a tea-party and ask- 
ing people to it that would be like to stand be- 
tween her and any little project she might hap- 
pen to have on anybody’s heart, — not she ! It 
was all right now ; — Blanche was married and 
BO forth ; Letty was a child ; Elsie was his daugh- 
ter ; Helen Barley was a nice, worthy drudge, — 
poor thing ! — faded, faded, — colors wouldn’t 
wash, — just what she wanted to show off 
against. Now, if the Dudley mansion-house 
people would only come, — that was the great 
point. 

“ Here’s a note for us, Elsie,” said her father 
as they sat round the breakfast-table. “ Mrs. 
Bowens wants us all to come to tea.” 

It was one of “ Elsie’s days,” as Old Sophy 
called them. The light in her eyes was still, but 
very bright. She looked up so full of perverse 
and wilful impulses, that Dick knew he could 
make her go with him and her father. He had 
his own motives for bringing her to this determi* 
nation, — and his own way of setting about it 


ELSIE VENNER. 


365 


** I don’t want to go,” he said. “ What do 
you say, Uncle ? ” 

“ To tell the truth, Richard, I don’t much 
fancy the Major’s widow. I don’t like to see 
her weeds flowering out quite so strong. I sup- 
pose. you don’t care about going, Elsie ? ” 

Elsie looked up in her father’s face with an 
expression which he knew but too well. She 
was just in the state which the plain sort of 
people call “ contrary,” when they have to deal 
with it in animals. She would insist on going 
to that tea-party ; he knew it just as well be- 
fore she spoke as after she had spoken. If Dick 
had said he wanted to go and her father had 
seconded his wishes, she would have insisted on 
staying at home. It was no great matter, her 
father said to himself, after all ; very likely it 
would amuse her; the Widow was a lively 
woman enough, — perhaps a little comme il ne 
faut pas socially, compared with the Thorntons 
and some other families ; but what did he care 
"or these petty village distinctions ? 

Elsie spoke. 

“ I mean to go. You must go with me. Dud- 
’ey. You may do as you like, Dick.” 

That settled the Dudley-mansion business, of 
course. They all three accepted, as fortunately 
lid all the others who had been invited. 

Hyacinth Cottage was a pretty place enough, 
A little too much choked round with bushes, and 


566 


ELSIE VENNER. 


too much overrun with climbing-roses, which, in 
the season of slugs and rose-bugs, were apt to 
show so brown about the leaves and so coleop- 
terous about the flowers, that it might be ques- 
tioned whether their buds and blossoms made 
up for these unpleasant animal combinations,— 
especially as the smell of whale-oil soap was very 
commonly in the ascendant over that of the roses. 
It had its patch of grass called “ the lawn,” and 
Its glazed closet known as “ the conservatory,” 
according to that system of harmless fictions 
characteristic of the rural imagination and shown 
in the names applied to many familiar objects. 
The interior of the cottage was more tasteful and 
ambitious than that of the ordinary two-story 
dwellings. In place of the prevailing hair-cloth 
covered furniture, the visitor had the satisfaction 
of seating himself upon a chair covered with 
some of the Widow’s embroidery, or a sofa lux- 
urious with soft caressing plush. The sporting 
tastes of the late Major showed in various prints 
on the wall : Herring’s “ Plenipotentiary,” the 
^ red bullock ” of the ’34 Derby ; “ Cadland ” and 
‘ The Colonel ” ; “ Crucifix” ; “ West- Australian,” 
Sastest of modern racers ; and among native 
celebrities, ugly, game old “ Boston,” with his 
straight neck and ragged hips ; and gray “ Lady 
Suffblk,” queen, in her day, not of the turf bul 
of the track, ‘‘ extending ” herself till she meas 
ured a rod, more or less, skimming along withii* 
a yard of the ground, her legs opening and shut 


ELSIE VENKER 


3G7 


mig under her with a snap, like the four blatlea 
of a compound jack-knife. 

These pictures were much more refreshing than 
those dreary fancy death-bed scenes, common in 
two-story country-houses, in which Washington 
and other distinguished personages are represent- 
ed as obligingly devoting their last moments to 
taking a prominent part in a tableau, in which 
weeping relatives, attached servants, professional 
assistants, and celebrated personages who might 
by a stretch of imagination be supposed pres- 
ent, are grouped in the most approved style oi 
arrangement about the chief actor’s pillow. 

A single glazed bookcase held the family li- 
brary, which was hidden from vulgar eyes by 
green silk curtains behind the glass. It would 
have been instructive to get a look at it, as it 
always is to peep into one’s neighbor’s book- 
shelves. From other sources and opportunities 
a partial idea of it has been obtained. The 
Widow had inherited some books from her 
mother, who was something of a reader : Young’s 
« Night-Thoughts ” ; “ The Preceptor ” ; “ The 
Task, a Poem,” by William Cowper ; Hervey’s 
‘‘ Meditations ” ; “ Alonzo and Melissa ” ; “ Buc- 
caneers of America ” ; “ The Triumphs of Tem- 
per”; “ La Belle Assemblee”; Thomson’s Sea- 
sons” ; and a few others. The Major had brought 
in Tom Jones ” and “ Peregrine Pickle ” ; vari- 
ous works by Mr. Pierce Egan ; ‘‘ Boxiana ” 

^ The Racing Calendar ” ; and a Book of IJvelj 


368 


ELSIE VENNER. 


Songs and Jests.” The Widow had added the 
Poems of Lord Byron and T. Moore ; “ Eugene 
Aram ” ; “ The Tower of London,” by Harrison 
Ainsworth ; some of ScotPs Novels ; “ The Pick- 
wick Papers ” ; a volume of Plays, by W. Shak- 
Bpeare; “Proverbial Philosophy”; “Pilgrim’s Prog- 
ress ” ; “ The Whole Duty of Man ” (a present 
when she was married) ; with two celebrated re- 
ligious works, one by William Law and the other 
by Philip Doddridge, which were sent her after 
her husband’s death, and which she had tried to 
read, but found that they did not agree with her 
Of course the bookcase held a few school man- 
uals and compendiums, and one of Mr. Web- 
ster’s Dictionaries. But the gilt-edged Bible 
always lay on the centre-table, next to the mag- 
azine with the fashion-plates and the scrap-book 
with pictures from old annuals and illustrated 
papers. 

The reader need not apprehend the recital, at 
full length, of such formidable preparations for 
the Widow’s tea-party as were required in the 
case of Colonel Sprowle’s Social Entertainment. 
A tea-party, even in the country, is a compar- 
atively simple and economical piece of business. 
As soon as the Widow found that all her com- 
pany were coming, she set to work, with the aid 
of her “ smart ” maid-servant and a daughter of 
her own, who was beginning to stretch and spread 
at a fearful rate, but whom she treated as a smal 
child, to make the necessary preparations. Th# 


ELSIE VENNER. 


369 


iilver hai to be rubbed ; also the grand plated 
urn, — her mother’s before hers, — style of the 
Empire, — looking as if it might have been made 
to hold the Major’s ashes. Then came the mak- 
ing and baking of cake and gingerbread, the 
Bmell whereof reached even as far as the sidewalk 
in front of the cottage, so that small boys return- 
ing from school snuffed it in the breeze, and dis- 
coursed with each other on its suggestions ; so 
that the Widow Leech, who happened to pass, 
remembered she hadn’t called on Marilly Raowens 
for a consid’ble spell, and turned in at the gate 
and rang three times with long intervals, — but 
all in vain, the inside Widow having “spotted” 
the outside one through the blinds, and whispered 
to her aides-de-camp to let the old thing ring away 
till she pulled the bell out by the roots, but not to 
stir to open the door. 

Widow Rowens was what they called a real 
smart, capable woman, not very great on books, 
perhaps, but knew what was what and who was 
who as well as another, — knew how to make the 
little cottage look pretty, how to set out a tea- 
table, and, what a good many women never can 
find out, knew her own style and “ got herself up 
tip-top,” as our young friend Master Geordie, 
Colonel Sprowle’s heir-apparent, remarked to his 
fiiend from one of the fresh-water colleges, 
flowers were abundant now, and she had 
dressed her rooms tastefully with them. The 
centre-table had two or three gilt-edged books 
24 


570 


ELSIE VENNER. 


lying carelessly about on it, and some prints 
and a stereoscope with stereographs to match 
chiefly groups of picnics, weddings, etc., in which 
the same somewhat fatigued-looking ladies of 
fashion and brides received the attentions of th 
same unpleasant-looking young men, easily iden 
tified under their different disguises, consisting of 
fashionable raiment such as gentlemen are sup- 
posed to wear habitually. With these, however, 
were some pretty English scenes, — pretty except 
for the old fellow with the hanging under-lip who 
infests every one of that interesting series ; and a 
statue or two, especially that famous one com- 
monly called the Lahcoon, so as to rhyme with 
moon and spoon, and representing an old man 
with his two sons in the embraces of two mon- 
strous serpents. 

There is no denying that it was a very dashing 
achievement of the Widow’s to bring together so 
considerable a number of desirable guests. She 
felt proud of her feat ; but as to the triumph of 
getting Dudley Venner to come out for a visit to 
Hyacinth Cottage, she was surprised and almost 
frightened at her own success. So much might 
depend on the impressions of that evening ! 

The next thing was to be sure that everybody 
should be in the right place at the tea-table, and 
this the Widow thought she could manage by a 
few words to the older guests and a little shuffling 
about and shifting when they got to the table 
To settle everything the Widow made out a dia- 


ELSIE VENNER. 


371 


gram, which the reader should have a chance of 
inspecting in an authentic copy, if these pages 
were allowed under any circumstances to be the 
vehicle of illustrations. If, however, he or she 
really wishes to see the way the pieces stood as 
they were placed at the beginning of the game, 
(the Widow’s gambit,) he or she had better at 
once take a sheet of paper, draw an oval, and 
arrange the characters according to the following 
schedule. 

At the head ol’ the table, the Hostess, Widow 
Marilla Rowens. Opposite her, at the other end, 
Rev. Dr. Honeywood. At the right of the Host- 
ess, Dudley Venner, next him Helen Darley, next 
her Dr. Kittredge, next him Mrs. Blanche Crea- 
mer, then the Reverend Doctor. At the left of 
the Hostess, Bernard Langdon, next him Letty 
Forrester, next Letty Mr. Richard Venner, next 
him Elsie, and so to the Reverend Doctor again. 

The company came together a little before the 
early hour at which it was customary to take tea 
in Rockland. The Widow knew everybody, of 
course : who was there in Rockland she did not 
know ? But some of them had to be introduced : 
Mr. Richard Venner to Mr. Bernard, Mr. Bernard 
to Miss Letty, Dudley Venner to Miss Helen 
Darley, and so on. The two young men looked 
each other straight in the eyes, — both full of 
youthful life, but one of frank and fearless aspect, 
the other with a dangerous feline beauty alien tc 
he New England half of his olood. 


572 


ELSIE VENNER. 


The guests talked, turned over the prints, looked 
at the dowers, opened the “ Proverbial Philoso 
phy with gilt edges, and the volume of Plays by 
W. Shakspeare, examined the horse-pictures or 
the walls, and so passed away the time until te 
was announced, when they paired oft’ for the room 
where it was in readiness. The Widow had 
managed it well ; everything was just as she 
wanted it. Dudley Venner was between hersell 
and the poor tired-looking school-mistress with her 
faded colors. Blanche Creamer, a lax, tumble-to- 
pieces, Greuze-i^h. looking blonde, whom the 
Widow hated because the men took to her, was 
purgatoried between the two old Doctors, and 
could see all the looks that passed between Dick 
Venner and his cousin. The young school-master 
could talk to Miss Letty : it was his business to 
know how to talk to school-girls. Dick would 
amuse himself with his cousin Elsie. The old 
Doctors only wanted to be well fed and they 
W3uld do well enough. 

It would be very pleasant to describe the tea* 
table ; but in reality, it did not pretend to offer 
a plethoric banquet to the guests. The Wido 
had not visited at the mansionrhouses for nothing 
and she had learned there that an overloaded tea- 
table may do well enough for farm-hands when 
they come in at evening from their work and sit 
down unwashed in their shirt-sleeves, but that fo< 
decently bred people such an insult to the mem« 
ory of a dinner not yet half-assimilated is wholB 


ELSIE VENNER. 


37? 


inadmissible. Everything was delicate, and al- 
most everything of fair complexion : white bread 
and biscuits, frosted and sponge cake, cream, 
honey, straw-colored butter ; only a shadow here 
and there, where the fire had crisped and browned 
the surfaces of a stack of dry toast, or whero a 
preserve had brought away some of the red sun- 
shine of the last year’s summer. The Widow 
shall have the credit of her well-ordered tea-table, 
also of her bountiful cream-pitchers ; for it is well 
known that city-people find cream a very scarce 
luxury in a good many country-houses of more 
pretensions than Hyacinth Cottage. There are 
no better maxims for ladies who give tea-parties 
than these : — 

Cream is thicker than water. 

Large heart never loved little cream~poU 
There is a common feeling in genteel families 
that the third meal of the day is not so essential 
a part of the daily bread as to require any especial 
acknowledgment to the Providence which bestows 
it. Very devout people, who would never sit down 
to a breakfast or a dinner without the grace before 
meat which honors the Giver of it, feel as if they 
thanked Heaven enough for their tea and toast 
oy partaking of them cheerfully without audible 
petition or ascription. But the Widow was not 
exactly mansion-house-bred, and so thought it 
accessary to give the Reverend Doctor a peculiar 
ook which he understood at once as inviting his 
orofessional services. He, therefore, uttered a few 


B74 


ELSIE VENNER. 


simple words of gratitude, very quietly, — much 
to the satisfaction of some of the guests, who had 
expected one of those elaborate effusions, with 
rolling up of the eyes and rhetorical accents, so 
frequent with eloquent divines when they address 
their Maker in genteel company. 

Everybody began talking with the person sit- 
ting next at hand. Mr. Bernard naturally enough 
turned his attention first to the Widow; but 
somehow or other the right side of the Widow 
seemed to be more wide awake than the left side, 
next him, and he resigned her to the courtesies 
of Mr. Dudley Venner, directing himself, not very 
unwillingly, to the young girl next him on the 
other side. Miss Letty Forrester, the grand- 
daughter of the Reverend Doctor, was city-bred, 
as anybody might see, and city-dressed, as any 
woman would know at sight ; a man might only 
feel the general effect of clear, well-matched col- 
ors, of harmonious proportions, of the cut which 
makes everything cling like a bather’s sleeve 
where a natural outline is to be kept, and ruffle 
itself up like the hackle of a pitted fighting-cock 
where art has a right to luxuriate in silken ex- 
uberance. How this city-bred and city-dressed 
girl came to be in Rockland Mr. Bernard did not 
know, but he knew at any rate that she was his 
next neighbor and entitled to his courtesies. She 
tvas handsome, too, when he came to look, verj 
Handsome when he came to look again, — en 
^^^^dowed with that city beauty which is like th« 


ELSIE VENNER. 


373 


Deauty of wall-fruit, something finer in certain 
respects than can be reared off the pavement. 

The miserable routinists who keep repeating 
invidiously Cowper’s 

“ God made the countrj and man made the town,** 

as if the town were a place to kill out the race 
in, do not know what they are talking about 
Where could they raise such Saint- Michael pears, 
such Saint-Germains, such Brown Beurr^s, as 
we had until within a few years growing with- 
in the walls of our old city-gardens ? Is the dark 
and damp cavern where a ragged beggar hides 
himself better than a town-mansion which fronts 
the sunshine and backs on its own cool shadow, 
with gas and water and all appliances to suit all 
needs? God made the cavern and man made 
the house! What then? 

There is no doubt that the pavement keeps a 
deal of mischief from coming up out of the earth, 
and, with a dash off of it in summer, just to cool 
the soles of the feet when it gets too hot, is the 
best place for many constitutions, as some few 
practical people have already discovered. And 
just so these beauties that grow and ripen against 
the city-walls, these young fellows with cheeks 
like peaches and young girls with cheeks like 
nectarines, show that the most perfect forms of 
artificial life can do as much for tne human prod 
»ict as garden-culture for strawberries and black 
Dcrries. 


ELSIE VENNER. 


m 

If Mr. Bernard had philosophized or prosed in 
this way, with so pretty, nay, so lovely a neigh- 
bor as Miss Letty Forrester waiting for him to 
speak to her, he would have to be dropped from 
this narrative as a person unworthy of his good- 
fortune, and not deserving the kind reader’s fur- 
ther notice. On the contrary, he no sooner set 
his eyes fairly on her than he said to himself that 
she was charming, and that he wished she were 
one of his scholars at the Institute. So he began 
talking with her in an easy way; for he knew 
something of young girls by this time, and, of 
course, could adapt himself to a young lady who 
looked as if she might be not more than fifteen or 
sixteen years old, and therefore could hardly be 
a match in intellectual resources for the seventeen 
and eighteen year-old first-class scholars of the 
A-poilinean Institute. But city-wall-fruit ripens 
early, and he soon found that this girl’s training 
had so sharpened her wits and stored her mem- 
ory, that he need not be at the trouble to stoop 
painfully in order to come down to her level. 

The beauty of good-breeding is that it adjusts 
itself to all relations without effort, true to itself 
always, however the manners of those around 
it may change. Self-respect and respect for 
others, — the sensitive consciousness poises itself 
in these as the compass in the ship’s binnacle 
balances itself and maintains its true level with- 
in the two concentric rings which suspend it on 
•heir pivots. This thorough-bred school-girl quite 


ELSIE VENDER. 


377 


enchanted Mr. Bernard. He could not under- 
Btand where she got her style, her way of dress, 
her enunciation, her easy manners. The minis- 
ter was a most worthy gentleman, but this was 
not the Rockland native-born manner ; some new 
element had come in between the good, plain, 
worthy man and this young girl, fit to be a Crown 
Prince’s partner where there were a thousand to 
choose from. 

He looked across to Helen Barley, for he knew 
she would understand the glance of admiration 
with which he called her attention to the young 
beauty at his side ; and Helen knew what a young 
girl could be, as compared with what too many a 
one is, as well as anybody. 

This poor, dear Helen of ours ! How admira- 
ble the contrast between her and the Widow on 
the other side of Dudley Venner! But, what was 
very odd, that gentleman apparently thought the 
contrast was to the advantage of this poor, dear 
Helen. At any rate, instead of devoting himself 
solely to the Widow, he happened to be just at 
that moment talking in a very interested and, 
apparently, not uninteresting way to his right- 
hand neighbor, who, on her part, never looked 
more charmingly, — as Mr. Bernard could not 
help saying to himself, — but, to be sure, he had 
just been looking at the young girl next him, so 
that his eyes were brimful of beauty, and may 
have spilled some of it on the first comer : for you 
know M. Becquerel has been showing us lately 


578 


ELSIE VENDER. 


how everything is phosphorescent ; that it soaks 
itself with light in an instant’s exposure, so thai 
it is wet with liquid sunbeams, or, if you will 
tremulous with luminous vibrations, when firsi 
plunged into the negative bath of darkness, and 
betrays itself by the light which escapes from its 
surface. 

Whatever were the reason, this poor, deal 
Helen never looked so sweetly. Her plainly 
parted brown hair, her meek, blue eyes, her cheek 
just a little tinged with color, the almost sad 
simplicity of her dress, and that look he knew so 
•well, — so full of cheerful patience, so sincere, 
that he had trusted her from the first moment as 
the believers of the larger half of Christendom 
trust the Blessed Virgin, — Mr. Bernard took this 
all in at a glance, and felt as pleased as if it had 
been his own sister Dorothea Elizabeth that he 
was looking at. As for Dudley Vernier, Mr, 
Bernard could not help being struck by the ani- 
mated expression of his countenance. It cer- 
tainly showed great kindness, on his part, to pay 
BO much attention to this quiet girl, when he had 
the thunder-and-Hghtning Widow on the othei 
Bide of him. 

Mrs. Marilla Rowens did not know what to 
make of it. She had made her tea-party expressly 
for Mr. Dudley Venner. She had placed him lust 
as she wanted, between herself and a meek, deli- 
cate woman who dressed in gray, wore a pJaiy 
breastpin with hair in it, who taught a pack of 


ELSIE VENNER. 


379 


^Is up there at the school, and looked as if she 
were born for a teacher, — the very best foil that 
she could have chosen ; and here was this man, 
polite enough to herself, to be sure, but turning 
round to that very undistinguished young person, 
as if he rather preferred her conversation of the 
two ! 

The truth was that Dudley Venner and Helen 
Darley met as two travellers might meet in the 
desert, wearied, both of them, with their long 
journey, one having food, but no water, the other 
water, but no food. Each saw that the other had 
been in long conflict with some trial ; for their 
voices were low and tender, as patiently borne 
sorrow and humbly uttered prayers make every 
human voice. Through these tones, more than 
by what they said, they came into natural sym- 
pathetic relations with each other. Nothing could 
be more unstudied. As for Dudley Venner, no 
beauty in all the world could have so soothed 
and magnetized him as the very repose and sub- 
dued gentleness which the Widow had thought 
would make the best possible background for her 
own more salient and effective attractions. No 
doubt, Helen, on her side, was almost too readily 
pleased with the confidence this new acquaint- 
ance she was making seemed to show her from 
the very first. She knew so few men of any con- 
dition ! Mr. Silas Peckham • he was her employer, 
%nd she ought to think of him as well as she 
could ; but every time she thought of him it wa» 


S80 


ELSIE VENIsTER. 


with a shiver of disgust. Mr. Bernard Langdon; 
a noble young man, a true friend, like a brother 
to her, — God bless him, and send him som 
young heart as fresh as his own ! But this gen- 
tleman produced a new impression upon her, 
quite different from any to which she was accus- 
tomed. His rich, low tones had the strangest 
significance to her ; she felt sure he must have 
lived through long experiences, sorrowful like her 
own. Elsie’s father! She looked into his dark 
eyes, as she listened to him, to see if they had 
any glimmer of that peculiar light, diamond- 
bright, but cold and still, which she knew so well 
in Elsie’s. Anything but that 1 Never was there 
more tenderness, it seemed to her, than in the 
whole look and expression of Elsie’s father. She 
must have been a great trial to him ; yet his face 
was that of one who had been saddened, not 
soured, by his discipline. Knowing what Elsie 
must be to him, how hard she must make any 
parent’s life, Helen could not but be struck with 
the interest Mr. Dudley Venner showed in her as 
his daughter’s instructress. He was too kind to 
her ; again and again she meekly turned from 
him, so as to leave him free to talk to the showy 
lady at his other side, who was looking all the 
while 

“ like the night 

Of cloudless realms and stariy skies ” ; 

but still Mr. Dudley Venner, after a lew courte* 
ous words, came back to the blue eyes and brow# 


ELSIE TENNER. 


381 


haii; still lie kept his look fixed upon her, and 
his tones grew sweeter and lower as he became 
more int(3rested in talk, until this poor, dear 
Helen, wliat with surprise, and the bashfulness 
natural to one who had seen little of the gay 
world, and the stirring of deep, confused sym- 
pathies with this suffering father, whose heart 
seemed so full of kindness, felt her cheeks glow- 
ing with unwonted flame, and betrayed the pleas- 
ing trouble of her situation by looking so sweetly 
as to arrest Mr. Bernardos eye for a moment, 
when he looked away from the young beauty 
sitting next him. 

Elsie meantime had been silent, with that 
singular, still, watchful look which those who 
knew her well had learned to fear. Her head 
just a little inclined on one side, perfectly mo-f 
tionless for whole minutes, her eyes seeming to 
grow small and bright, as always when she was 
under her evil influence, she was looking ob- 
liquely at the young girl on the other side of her 
cousin Dick and next to Bernard Langdon. As 
for Dick himself, she seemed to be paying very 
little attention to him. Sometimes her eyes 
would wander off to Mr. Bernard, and their ex- 
pression, as old Dr. Kittredge, who watched her 
for a while pretty keenly, noticed, would change 
perceptibly. One would have said that she 
looked with a kind of dull hatred at the girl, 
but with a half-relenting reproachful anger at 
Mr. Bernard. 


382 


ELSIE VENNER. 


Miss Letty Forrester, at whom Elsie had been 
looking from time to time in this fixed way 
was conscious meanwhile of some unusual in- 
fluence. First it was a feeling of constraint, — 
then, as it were, a diminished power over the 
muscles, as if an invisible elastic cobweb were 
spinning round her, — then a tendency to turn 
away from IVIr. Bernard, who was making him- 
self very agreeable, and look straight into those 
eyes which would not leave her, and which 
seemed to be drawing her towards them, while 
at the same time they chilled the blood in aU 
her veins. 

Mr. Bernard saw this influence coming over 
her. All at once he noticed that she sighed, 
and that some little points of moisture began to 
glisten on her forehead. But she did not grovz 
pale perceptibly ; she had no involuntary or hys- 
teric movements ; she still listened to him and 
smiled naturally enough. Perhaps she was only 
nervous at being ctared at. At any rate, she was 
coming under some unpleasant influence or other, 
and Mr. Bernard had seen enough of the strange 
impression Elsie sometimes produced to wish 
this young girl to be relieved from it, whatever 
it was. He turned toward Elsie and looked at 
her in such a way as to draw her eyes upon him, 
Then he looked steadily and calmly into them. 
It was a great effort, for some perfectly in ex- 
plicable reason. At one instant he thought hi 
could not sit where he was; he must go an<? 


ELSIE VENNER. 


383 


ipeak to Elsie. Then he wanted to take his 
Byes away from hers ; there was something in- 
tolerable in the light that came from them. But 
he was determined to look her down, and he be- 
lieved he could do it, for he had seen her counte- 
nance change more than once when he had 
caught her gaze steadily fixed on him. Ail this 
took not minutes, but seconds. Presently she 
changed color slightly, — lifted her head, which 
was inclined a little to one side, — shut and 
opened her eyes two or three times, as if they 
had been pained or wearied, — and turned away 
baffled, and shamed, as it would seem, and shorn 
for the time of her singular and formidable or at 
least evil-natured power of swaying the impulses 
of those around her. 

It takes too long to describe these scenes 
where a good deal of life is concentrated into 
a few silent seconds. Mr. Richard Venner had 
sat quietly through it all, although this short 
pantomime had taken place literally before his 
face. He saw what was going on well enough, 
and understood it all perfectly well. Of course 
the school-master had been trying to make Elsie 
jealous, and had succeeded. The little school- 
girl was a decoy-duck, — that was all. Estates 
like the Dudley property were not to be had 
every day, and no doubt the Yankee usher wag 
willing to take some pains to make sure of Elsie. 
Doesn’t Elsie look savage ? Dick involuntarily 
moved his chair a little away from her, and 


B84 


ELSIE VENNER. 


thought he felt a pricking in the small white 
scars on his wrist. A dare-devil fellow, but 
somehow or other this girl had taken strange 
hold of his imagination, and he often swore to 
himself, that, when he married her, he would 
carry a loaded revolver with him to his bridal 
chamber. 

Mrs. Blanche Creamer raged inwardly at first to 
find herself between the two old gentlemen of the 
party. It very soon gave her great comfort, how- 
ever, to see that Marilla Bowens had just missed 
it in her calculations, and she chuckled im- 
mensely to find Dudley Vernier devoting him- 
self chiefly to Helen Darley. If the Bowens 
woman should hook Dudley, she felt as if she 
should gnaw all her nails oif for spite. To think 
of seein" her barouchinof about Bockland be- 
hind a pair of long-tailed bays and a coachman 
with a band on his hat, while she, Blanche Crea- 
mer, was driving herself about in a one-horse 
“carriage”! Becovering her spirits by degrees, 
she began playing her surfaces off at the two 
old Doctors, just by way of practice. First she 
heaved up a glaring white shoulder, the right 
one, so that the Beverend Doctor should be 
stunned by it, if such a thing might be. The 
Reverend Doctor was human, as the Apostle 
was not ashamed to confess himself. Half- 
devoutly and half-mischievously he repeated ‘ai- 
wardly, “ Resist the Devil and he will flee from 
/ou.” As the Reverend Doctor did not show 


ELSIE VENNER. 


385 


any lively susceptibility, she thought she would 
try the left shoulder on old Dr. Kittredge. That 
worthy and experienced student of science was 
not at all displeased with the manoeuvi-e, and 
lifted his head so as to command the exhibition 
hrough his glasses. “ Blanche is good for half 
a dozen years or so, if she is careful,’^ the Doctor 
said to himself, “ and then she must take to her 
prayer-book.” After this spasmodic failure of 
Mrs. Blanche Creamer’s to stir up the old Doc- 
tors, she returned again to the pleasing task of 
watching the Widow in her evident discomfiture. 
But dark as the Widow looked in her half-con- 
cealed pet, she was but as a pale shadow, com- 
pared to Elsie in her silent concentration of 
shame and anger. 

“ Well, there is one good thing,” said Mrs. 
Blanche Creamer; “Dick doesn’t get much out 
of that cousin of his this evening! Doesn’t he 
look handsome, though ? ” 

So Mrs. Blanche, being now a good deal taken 
up with her observations of those friends of hers 
and ours, began to be rather careless of her two 
old Doctors, who naturally enough feU into con- 
versation with each other across the white sur- 
faces of that lady, — perhaps not very politely, 
but, under the circumstances, almost as a matter 
of necessity. 

When a minister and a doctor get talking 
together, they always have a great deal to say 
and so it happened that the company left the 

25 


586 


ELSIE VENNER. 


table just as the two Doctors were beginning to 
get at each other’s ideas about various interest- 
ing matters. If we follow them into the other 
parlor, we can, perhaps, pick up something of 
jheir conversation. 


£LSI£ VSNjNinR* 


887 


CHAPTER XXII. 

WHY DOCTORS DIFFER. 

Tn i company rearranged itself with some 
char/'cs after leaving the tea-table. Dudley 
Venr.er was very polite to the Widow ; but that 
lady having been called off for a few moments 
for some domestic arrangement, he slid back to 
the side of Helen Darley, his daughter’s faithful 
teacher. Elsie had got away by herself, and was 
taken up in studying the stereoscopic Laocoon. 
Dick, being thus set free, had been seized upon 
by Mrs. Blanche Creamer, who had diffused her- 
self over three-quarters of a sofa and beckoned 
him to the remaining fourth. Mr. Bernard and 
Miss Letty were having a snug tete-d-tete in the 
recess of a bay-window. The two Doctors had 
taken two arm-chairs and sat squared off against 
each other. Their conversation is perhaps as 
well worth reporting as that of the rest of the 
company, and, as it was carried on in a louder 
tone, was of course more easy to gather and put 
on record. 

It was a curious sight enough to see those two 
iepresff'ntatives of two great professions brought 


388 


ELSIE VE>?NER. 


face to face to talk over the subjects they hao 
been looking at all their lives from such dif- 
ferent points of view. Both were old ; old 
enough to have been moulded by their habits 
of thought and life ; old enough to have all 
their beliefs “fretted in,” as vintners say, — 
thoroughly worked up with their characters 
Each of them looked his calling. The Rev 
erend Doctor had lived a good deal among 
books in his study; the Doctor, as we will caL 
the medical gentleman, had been riding about 
the country for between thirty and forty years. 
His face looked tough and weather-worn ; while 
the Reverend Doctor’s, hearty as it appeared, 
was of finer texture. The Doctor’s was the 
graver of the two ; there was something of 
grimness about it, — partly owing to the north- 
easters he had faced for so many years, partly 
to long comp onship with that stern person- 
age who nev deals in sentiment or pleasantry. 
His speech was apt to be brief and peremp- 
tory ; it was a way he had got by ordering 
patients ; but he could discourse somewhat, on 
.occasion, as the reader may find out. The 
Reverend Doctor had an open, smiling expres- 
sion, a cheery voice, a hearty laugh, and a 
cordial way with him which some thought too 
lively for his cloth, but which children, who are 
good judges of such matters, delighted in, so 
that he was the favorite of all the little rogues 
about town. But he had the clerical art of sof 


ELSIE VENNER. 


383 


beriiig down in a moment, when asked to say 
grace while somebody was in the middle of some 
particularly funny story ; and though his voice 
was so cheery in common talk, in the pulpit, like 
almost all preachers, he had a wholly different 
and peculiar way of speaking, supposed to be 
more acceptable to the Creator than the natural 
manner. In point of fact, most of our anti- 
papal and anti-prelatical clergymen do really m- 
ione their prayers, without suspecting in the least 
that they have fallen into such a Romish practice. 

This is the way the conversation between the 
Doctor of Divinity and the Doctor of Medicine 
was going on at the point where these notes take 
it up. 

“ Ubi ires me did, duo athei, you know. Doctor. 
Your profession has always had the credit of be- 
ing lax in doctrine, — though pretty stringent in 
practice, ha ' ha ! ” 

“ Some priest said that,” the Doctor answered, 
dryly. “ They always talked Latin when they 
had a bigger lie than common to get rid of.” 

“Good!” said the Reverend Doctor; “Pm 
afraid they would lie a little sometimes. But 
isn’t there some truth in it. Doctor ? Don’t you 
think your profession is apt to see ‘ Nature ’ in 
the place of the God of Nature, — to lose sight 
of the great First Cause in their daily study of 
secondary causes ? ” 

“I’ve thought ab^ut that,” the Doctor answered, 


590 


ELSIE VENNER. 


^ and Fve talked about it and read about it, and 
Fve come to the conclusion that nobody believes 
In God and trusts in God quite so much as the 
doctors ; only it isn’t just the sort of Deity that 
some of your profession have wanted them to 
take up with. There was a student of mine 
wrote a dissertation on the Natural Theology of 
Health and Disease, and took that old lying 
proverb for his motto. He knew a good deal 
more about books than ever I did, and had 
studied in other countries. Fll tell you what ho 
said about it. He said the old Heathen Doctor, 
Galen, praised God for his handiwork in the hu- 
man body, just as if he had been a Christian, 
or the Psalmist himself. He said they had this 
sentence set up in large letters in the great lec- 
ture-room in Paris where he attended : I dressed 
his wound and God healed him. That was an old 
surgeon’s saying. And he gave a long list of 
doctors who were not only Christians, but famous 
ones. I grant you, though, ministers and doctors 
are very apt to see diflhrently in spiritual mat- 
ters.” 

“ That’s it,” said the K^verend Doctor ; “ you 
are apt t*) see ‘Nature’ wh«re we see God, and 
appeal tc Science ’ where we are contented with 
Revelation.” 

“We don’t separate God a.V Nature, perhaps, 
0.8 you do,” the Doctor answered. « When we 
^ay that God is omnipresent and omnipotent and 
omniscient, we are a little more apt to mean it 


ELSIE VENNER. 


391 


than your folks are. We think, when a wound 
heals, that God’s presence and power and knowU 
edge are there, healing it, just as that old sur- 
geon did. We think a good many theologians, 
working among their books, don’t see the facts 
of the world they live in. When we tell ’em 
of these facts, they are apt to call us material- 
ists and atheists and infidels, and all that. We 
can’t help seeing the facts, and we don’t think 
it’s wicked to mention ’em.” 

“ Do tell me,” the Reverend Doctor said, “ some 
of these facts we are in the habit of overlooking, 
and which your profession thinks it can see and 
understand.” 

“ That’s very easy,” the Doctor replied. “ For 
instance : you don’t understand or don’t allow for 
idiosyncrasies as we learn to. We know that 
food and physic act differently with different peo- 
ple ; but you think the same kind of truth is go- 
ing to suit, or ought to suit, all minds. We don’t 
fight with a patient because he can’t take mag- 
nesia or opium; but you are all the time quar- 
relling over your beliefs, as if belief did not 
viepend very much on race and constitution, to 
say nothing of early training.” 

“ Do you mean to say that every man is not 
absolutely free to choose his beliefs ? ” 

‘ The men you write about in your studies 
are, but not the men we see in the real world. 
There is some apparentlv congenital defect in 
lae Indians, for instance, that keeps them from 


ELSIE VENNER. 


M2 

noosing civilization and Christianity. So with 
iie Gypsies, very likely. Everybody knows that 
Catholicism or Protestantism is a good deal a 
natter of race. Constitution has more to do 
vith belief than people think for. I went to a 
•Jniversalist church, when I was in the city one 
lay, to hear a famous man whom all the world 
dnows, and I never saw such pews-full of broad 
shoulders and florid faces, and substantial, whole- 
some-looking persons, male and female, in all 
my life. Why, it was astonishing. Either their 
creed made them healthy, or they chose it be- 
cause they were healthy. Your folks have never 
got the hang of human nature.^’ 

“ I am afraid this would be considered a de- 
grading and dangerous view of human beliefs 
and responsibility for them,” the Reverend Doc- 
tor replied. “ Prove to a man that his will is 
governed by something outside of himself, and 
you have lost all hold on his moral and religious 
nature. There is nothing bad men want to be- 
lieve so much as that they are governed by neces- 
sity. Now that which is at once degrading and 
dangerous cannot be true.” 

“ No doubt,” the Doctor replied, “ all larg 
views of mankind limit our estimate of the abso- 
lute freedom of the will. But I don’t think it 
degrades or endangers us, for this reason, that, 
while iC makes us charitable to the rest of man- 
tind, o ir own sense of freedom, whatever it is, is 
Qever a dected by argument. Conscience luonH b$ 


EISIE VENNER. 


93 


reasoned with. We feel that we can practi .ally 
do this or that, and if we choose the wrop we 
know we are responsible ; but observation t aches 
us that this or that other race or individiiai has 
not the same practical freedom of choice. I don't 
see how we can avoid this conclusion in the in- 
stance of the American Indians. The science of 
Ethnology has upset a good many theoretical no- 
tions about human nature.’^ 

“ Science ! ’’ said the Reverend Doctor, “ sci- 
ence ! that was a word the Apostle Paul did not 
seem to think much of, if we may judge by the 
Epistle to Timothy : ‘ Oppositions of science 
falsely so caUed.’ I own that I am jealous of that 
word and the pretensions that go with it. Sci- 
ence has seemed to me to be very often only the 
handmaid of skepticism.’^ 

“ Doctor ! ” the physician said, emphatically, 
“ science is knowledge. Nothing that is not 
known properly belongs to science. Whenever 
knowledge obliges us to doubt, we are always 
safe in doubting. Astronomers foretell eclipses, 
say how long comets are to stay with us, point 
out where a new planet is to be found. We see 
they know what they assert, and the poor old Ro- 
man Catholic Church has at last to knock under. 
So Geology proves a certain succession of events, 
and the best Christian in the world must make 
the earth’s history square with it. Besides, I 
don’t think you remember what great revelations 
Df himself the Creator has made in the minds of 
flie men who have built up science. You seem 


594 


ELSIE VENNER. 


to me to hold his human masterpieces very clieap 
Don’t you think the ‘ inspiration of the Almighty 
gave Newton and Cuvier ‘understanding’?” 

The Reverend Doctor was not arguing for vic- 
tory. In fact, what he wanted was to call out 
the opinions of the old physician by a show of 
opposition, being already predisposed to agree 
with many of them. He was rather trying the 
common arguments, as one tries tricks of fence 
merely to learn the way of parrying. But just 
here he saw a tempting opening, and could not 
resist giving a home-thrust. 

“ Yes ; but you surely would not consider it 
inspiration of the same kind as that of the writers 
of the Old Testament ? 

That cornered the Doctor, and he paused a mo- 
ment before he replied. Then he raised his head, 
BO as to command the Reverend Doctor’s face 
through his spectacles, and said, — 

“ T did not say that. You are clear, I suppose, 
that the Omniscient spoke through Solomon, but 
that Shakspeare wrote without his help ? ” 

The Reverend Doctor looked very grave. It 
was a bold, blunt way of putting the question. 
He turned it aside with the remark, that Shak- 
Bpeare seemed to him at times to come as near 
inspiration as any human being not included 
among the sacred writers. 

“Doctor,” the physician began, as from a 
sudden suggestion, “ you won’t quarrel with me, 
if I tell you some of my real thoughts, wiL 
rou?” 


ELSIE VENNER. 


S95 


Say on, my dear Sir, say on,’> the ministei 
answered, with his most genial smile ; your real 
thoughts are just what I want to get at. A man^s 
real thoughts are a great rarity. If I doTiTagr^ 
'^th ydu, 1 shall UKTSThearyouJ^ 

The Doctor began; and in order to give his 
thoughts more connectedly, we will omit the con- 
versational breaks, the questions and comments 
of the clergyman, and all accidental interruptions. 

“ When the old ecclesiastics said that where 
there were three doctors there were two atheists, 
they lied, of course. They called everybody who 
differed from them atheists, until they found out 
that not believing in God wasn’t nearly so ugly a 
crime as not believing in some particular dogma ; 
then they called them heretics^ until so many 
good people had been burned under that name 
that it began to smell too strong of roasting flesh, 
— and after that infidels^ which properly means 
people without faith, of whom there are not a 
great many in any place or time. But then, of 
course, there was some reason why doctors 
shouldn’t think about religion exactly as minis- 
ters did, or they never would have made that 
proverb. It’s very likely that something of the 
same kind is true now ; whether it is so or not, I 
am going to tell you the reasons why it would 
not be strange, if doctors should take rather dif- 
!*erent views from clergymen about some matters 
ol belief. I don’t, of course, mean all doctors 


ELSIE VENNER. 


39 (; 

nor all clergymen. Some doctors go as far as 
any old New-England divine, and some clergy- 
men agree very well with the doctors that think 
least according to rule. 

“ To begin with their ideas of the Creator liim- 
eelf. They always see him trying to help his 
creatures out of their troubles. A man no sooner 
gets a cut, than the Great Physician, whose agen- 
cy we often call Nature^ goes to work, first to stop 
the blood, and then to heal the wound, and then 
to make the scar as small as possible. If a man’s 
pain exceeds a certain amount, he faints, and so 
gets relief. If it lasts too long, habit comes in to 
make it tolerable. If it is altogether too bad, he 
dies. That is the best thing to be done under the 
circumstances. So you see, the doctor is con- 
stantly in presence of a benevolent agency work- 
ing against a settled order of things, of which 
pain and disease are the accidents, so to speak. 
Well, no doubt they find it harder than clergymen 
to believe that there can be any world or state 
from which this benevolent agency is wholly ex- 
cluded. This may be very wrong ; but it is not 
unnatural. They can hardly conceive of a per- 
manent state of being in which cuts would never 
tiY to heal, nor habit render suffering endurable. 
This is one effect of their training. 

“ Then, again, their attention is very much 
called to human limitations. Ministers work out 
the machinery of responsibility in an abstract kind 
Df way ; they have a sort of algebra of humar 


ELSIE VENIS'ER. 


397 


nature, in which friction and slrenglh (or weak* 
ness) of material are left out. You see, a doctor 
is in the way of studying children from the mo- 
ment of birth upwards. For the first year or so 
e sees that they are just as much pupils of their 
Maker as the young of any other animals. Well, 
their Maker trains them to pure selfishness, 
W'hy ? In order that they may be sure to take 
care of themselves. So you see, when a child 
comes to be, we will say a year and a day old, 
and makes his first choice between right and 
wrong, he is at a disadvantage ; for he has that 
vis a tergo^ as we doctors call it, that force from 
behind, of a whole year’s life of selfishness, for 
which he is no more to blame than a calf is to 
blame for having lived in the same way, purely 
to gratify his natural appetites. Then we see 
that baby grow up to a child, and, if he is fat and 
stout and red and lively, we expect to find him 
troublesome and noisy, and, perhaps, sometimes 
disobedient more or less ; that’s the way each new 
generation breaks its egg-shell ; but if he is very 
weak and thin, and is one of the kind that may 
be expected to die early, he will very likely sit in 
the house all day and read good books about 
other little sharp-faced children just like himself, 
who died early, having always been perfectly in- 
diflerent to all the out-door amusements of the 
wicked little red-cheeked children. Some of the 
little folks we watch grow up to be young women, 
and occasionally one of them gets nervous, wha* 


598 


ELSIE VENNER. 


we call hysterical, and then that girl will begin to 
play all sorts of pranks, — to lie and cheat, per 
haps, in the most unaccountable way, so that she 
might seem to a minister a good example of total 
depravity. We don’t see her in that light. We 
give her iron and valerian, and get her on horse- 
back, if we can, and so expect to make her will 
come all right again. By-and-by we are called 
in to see an old baby, threescore years and ten or 
more old. We find this old baby has never got 
rid of that first year’s teaching which led him to 
fill his stomach with all he could pump into it, 
and his hands with everything he could grab. 
People call him a miser. We are sorry for him; 
but we can’t help remembering his first year’s 
training, and the natural effect of money on the 
great majority of those that have it. So while 
the ministers say he ‘ shall hardly enter into the 
kingdom of heaven,’ we like to remind them that 
‘ with God all things are possible.’ 

“ Once more, we see all kinds of monomania 
and insanity. We learn from them to recognize 
all sorts of queer tendencies in minds supposed 
to be sane, so that we have nothing but compas- 
sion for a large class of persons condemned as 
sinners by theologians, but considered by us as 
invalids. We have constant reasons for noticing 
the transmission of qualities from parents to off- 
spring, and we find it hard to hold a child ac- 
countable in any moral point of view for inherited 
bad temper or tendency to drunkenness, — as hare 


ELSIE VENNER. 


399 


as we should to blame him for inheriting gout or 
asthma. I suppose we are more lenient with hu- 
man nature than theologians generally are. We 
know that the spirits of men and their 'views of 
the present and the future go up and down with 
the barometer, and that a permanent depression 
of one inch in the mercurial column would affect 
the whole theology of Christendom. 

‘‘ Ministers talk about the human will as if it 
stood on a high look-out, with plenty of light, 
and elbow-room reaching to the horizon. Doc- 
tors are constantly noticing how it is tied up and 
darkened by inferior organization, by disease, and 
all sorts of crowding interferences, until they get 
to look upon Hottentots and Indians — and a 
good many of their own race — as a kind of self- 
conscious blood-clocks with very limited power 
of self-determination. That’s the tendency^ I say, 
of a doctor’s experience. But the people to whom 
they address their statements of the results of 
their observation belong to the thinking class of 
the highest races, and they are conscious of a 
great deal of liberty of will. So in the face of 
the fact that civilization with all it offers has 
proved a dead failure with the aboriginal races ot 
this country, — on the whole, I say, a dead fail- 
ure, — they talk as if they knew from their own 
will all about that of a Digger Indian! We are 
more apt to go by observation of the facts in the 
case. We are constantly seeing weakness where 
you see depravity. I don’t say we’re right; T 


400 


ELSIE VENNER. 


only tell what you must often find to be the factj 
right or wrong, in talking with doctors. You see, 
too, our notions of bodily and moral disease, or 
sin, are apt to go together. We used to be as hard 
on sickness as you were on sin. We know better 
now. We don’t look at sickness as we used to, 
and try to poison it with everything that is ofTeii* 
sive, — burnt toads and earth-worms and viper* 
broth, and worse things than these. We know 
that disease has something back of it which the 
body isn’t to blame for, at least in most cases, 
and which very often it is trying to get rid of. 
Just so with sin. I will agree to take a hundred 
new-born babes of a certain stock and return 
seventy-five of them in a dozen years true and 
honest, if not ‘ pious ’ children. And I will take 
another hundred, of a different stock, and put 
them in the hands of certain Ann-Street or Five- 
Points teachers, and seventy-five of them will be 
thieve i and liars at the end of the same dozen 
years. I have heard of an old character. Colonel 
Jaques, I believe it was, a famous cattle-breeder, 
who used to say he could breed to pretty much 
any pattern he wanted to. Well, we doctors see 
so much of families, how the tricks of the blood 
keep breaking out, just as much in character as 
they do in looks, that we can’t help feeling as if 
a great many people hadn’t a fair chance to be 
what is called ‘ good,’ and that there isn’t a texx 
in the Bible better worth keeping always in mind 
than that one, ‘ Judge not, that ye be not 
judged.’ 


ELSIE VENNER. 


401 


“ As for our getting any quarter at the hands 
of theologians, we don’t expect it, and have no 
right to. You don’t give each other any quarter*. 
I have had two religious books sent me by friends 
within a week or two. One is Mr. Brownson’s; 
he is as fair and square as Euclid ; a real honest, 
strong thinker, and one that knows what he is 
talking about, — for he has tried all sorts of re- 
ligions, pretty much. He tells us that the Roman 
Catholic Church is the one ‘ through which alone 
we can hope for heaven.’ The other is by a 
worthy Episcopal rector, who appears to write as 
if he were in earnest, and he calls the Papacy the 
‘ Devil’s Masterpiece,’ and talks about the ‘ Sa- 
tanic scheme ’ of that very Church ‘ through 
which alone,’ as Mr. Brownson tells us, ‘ we can 
hope for heaven’! What’s the use in our caring 
about hard words after this, — ‘atheists,’ heretics, 
infidels, and the like ? They’re, after all, only 
the cinders picked up out of those heaps of ashes 
round the stumps of the old stakes where they 
used to burn men, Avomen, and children for not 
thinking just like other folks. They’ll ‘ crock ’ 
your fingers, but they can’t burn us. 

“ Doctors are the best-natured people in the 
world, except when they get fighting with each 
other. And they have some advantages over 
you> You inherit youi nations from a set of 
priests that had no wives and no children, oi 
none to speak of, and so let their humanity die 
out of them. It didn’t seem much to them to 
23 


102 


ELSIE VENNER. 


condemn a few thousand millions of people U 
purgatory or worse for a mistake of judgment 
They didn’t know what it was to have a chilu 
look up in their faces and say ‘ Father! ’ It wiL 
take you a hundred or two more years to get de- 
cently humanized, after so many centuries of de- 
humanizing celibacy. 

“ Besides, though our libraries are, perhaps, not 
commonly quite so big as yours, God opens one 
book to physicians that a good many of you 
don’t know much about, — the Book of Life. 
That is none of your dusty folios with black 
letters between pasteboard and leather, but it is 
printed in bright red type, and the binding of it 
is warm and tender to every touch. They rever- 
ence that book as one of the Almighty’s infallible 
revelations. They will insist on reading you les- 
sons out of it, whether you call them names or 
not. These will always be lessons of charity. 
No doubt, nothing can be more provoking to 
listen to. But do beg your folks to remember 
that the Smithfield fires are all out, and that the 
finders are very dirty and not in the least danger- 
ous. They’d a great deal better be civil, and not 
be throwing old proverbs in the doctors’ faces, 
when they say that the man of the old monkish 
notions is one thing and the man they watch 
from his cradle to his coffin is something very 
different” 

It has cost a good deal of trouble to woik th« 


ELSIE VENNEB. 


403 


Doctor^s talk up into this formal shape. Some 
of his sentences have been rounded off for him, 
and the whole brought into a more rhetorical 
form than it could have pretended to, if taken 
as it fell from his lips. But the exact course of 
his remarks has been followed, and as far as pos- 
sible his expressions have been retained. Though 
given in the form of a discourse, it must be re- 
membered that this was a conversation, much 
more fragmentary and colloquial than it seems 
as just read. 

The Reverend Doctor was very far from taking 
offence at the old physician’s freedom of speech. 
He knew him to be honest, kind, charitable, self- 
denying, wherever any sorrow was to be alleviat- 
ed, always reverential, with a cheerful trust in the 
great Father of all mankind. To be sure, his 
senior deacon, old Deacon Shearer, — who seemed 
to have got his Scripture-teachings out of the 
“ Vinegar Bible,” (the one where Vineyard is 
misprinted Vinegar^ which a good many people 
seem to have adopted as the true reading,) — his 
senior deacon had called Dr. Kittredge an “ infi- 
del.” But the Reverend Doctor could not help 
feeling, that, unless the text, “ By their fruits ye 
shall know them,” were an interpolation, the 
Doctor was the better Christian of the two. 
Whatever his senior deacon might think about 
it, he said to himself that he shouldn’t be sur- 
prised if he met the Doctor in heaven yet, inqub*' 
ing anxiously after old Deacon Shearer; ^ 


404 


ELSIE VENNER. 


He was on the point of expressing himself very 
frankly to the Doctor, with that benevolent smile 
on his face which had sometimes come near 
giving ojfence to the readers of the ‘‘Vinegar” 
edition, but he saw that the physician’s attentio 
had been arrested by Elsie. He looked in the 
same direction himself, and could not help being 
struck by her attitude and expression. There 
was something singularly graceful in the curves 
of her neck and the rest of her figure, but she 
was so perfectly still that it seemed as if she were 
hardly breathing. Her eyes were fixed on the 
young girl with whom Mr. Bernard was talking. 
He had often noticed their brilliancy, but now it 
seemed to him that they appeared dull, and the 
look on her features was as of some passion 
which had missed its stroke. Mr. Bernard’s 
companion seemed unconscious that she was 
the object of this attention, and was listening 
^o the young master as if he had succeeded in 
making himself very agreeable. 

Of course Dick Venner had not mistaken the 
game that was going on. The school-master 
meant to make Elsie jealous, — and he had done 
it. That’s it: get her savage first, and then com 
wheedling round her, — a sure trick, if he isn’t 
headed off somehow. But Dick saw well enough 
that he had better let Elsie alone just now, and 
thought the best way of killing the evening would 
be to amuse himself in a little lively talk with 
Mrs. Blanche Creamer, and incidentally to shovt 


ELSIE VENNER. 


405 


Elsie that he could make himself acceptable to 
other women, if not to herself. 

The Doctor presently went up to Elsie, detei^ 
mined to engage her in conversation and get her 
out of her thoughts, which he saw, by her look, 
were dangerous. Her father had been- on the 
point of leaving Helen Darley to go to her, but 
felt easy enough when he saw the old Doctor at 
her side, and so went on talking. The Reverend 
Doctor, being now left alone, engaged the Widow 
Rowens, who put the best face on her vexation 
she could, but was devoting herself to all the 
underground deities for having been such a fool 
as to ask that pale-faced thing from the Institute 
to fill up her party. 

There is no space left to report the rest of the 
conversation. If there was anything of any sig- 
nificance in it, it will turn up by-and-by, no doubt. 
At ten o’clock the Reverend Doctor called Miss 
Letty, who had no idea it was so late ; Mr. Ber- 
nard gave his arm to Helen ; Mr. Richard saw to 
Mrs. Blanche Creamer; the Doctor gave Elsie a 
cautioning look, and went off alone, thoughtful ; 
Dudley Venner and his daughter got into their 
carriage and were whirled a\vay. The Widow^s 
gambit was played, and she had not won the 
game. 


106 


ELSIE TENNER. 


CHAPTER XXin. 

THE WILD HUNTSMAN. 

The young master had not forgotten the old 
Doctor’s cautions. Without attributing any great 
importance to the warning he had given him, 
Mr. Bernard had so far complied with his advice 
that he was becoming a pretty good shot with 
the pistol. It was an amusement as good as 
many others to practise, and he had taken a 
fancy to it after the first few days. 

The popping of a pistol at odd hours in the 
back-yard of the Institute was a phenomenon 
more than sufficiently remarkable to be talked 
about in Rockland. The viscous intelligence of 
a country-village is not easily stirred by the 
winds which ripple the fluent thought of great 
cities, but it holds every straw and entangles 
every insect that lights upon it. It soon became 
rumored in the town that the young master was 
a wonderful shot with the pistol. Some said he 
could hit a fo’pence-ha’penny at three rod ; some 
that he had shot a swallow, flying, with a single 
ball; some, that he snuffed a candle five times 
out of six at ten paces, and that he could hi 


V 


ELSIE VENNER. 


407 


Aliy button in a man’s coat he wanted to. In 
other words, as in all such cases, all the common 
feats were ascribed to him, as the current jokes 
of the day are laid at the door of any noted wit, 
however innocent he may be of them. 

In the natural course of things, Mr. Richard 
Venner, who had by this time made some ac- 
quaintances, as we have seen, among that class 
of the population least likely to allow a live 
cinder of gossip to go out for want of air, had 
heard incidentally that the master up there at the 
Institute was all the time practising with a pistol, 
that they say he can snuff a candle at ten rods, 
(that was Mrs. Blanche Creamer’s version,) and 
that he could hit anybody he wanted to right in 
the eye, as far as he could see the white of it. 

Dick did not like the sound of all this any too 
Well. Without believing more than half of it, 
there was enough to make the Yankee school- 
master too unsafe to be trifled with. However, 
shooting at a mark was pleasant work enough ; 
he had no particular objection to it himself. 
Only he did not care so much for those little 
popgun affairs that a man carries in his pocket 
and with which you couldn’t shoot a fellow, — 
a robber, say, — without getting the muzzle under 
his nose. Pistols for boys ; long-range rifles for 
■nen. There was such a gun lying in a closet 
with the fowling-pieces. He would go out into 
the fields and see what he could do as a marks- 


man. 


i08 


ELSIE VENNER. 


The nature of the mark which Dick chose foi 
experimenting upon was singular. He had found 
some panes of glass which had been removed 
from an old sash, and he placed these succcs- 
sively before his target, arranging them at differ- 
ent angles. He found that a bullet would go 
through the glass without glancing or having its 
force materially abated. It was an interesting 
fact in physics, and might prove of some prac- 
tical significance hereafter. Nobody knows what 
may turn up to render these out-of-the-way facts 
useful. All this was done in a quiet way in one 
of the bare spots high up the side of The Moun- 
tain. He was very thoughtful in taking the pre- 
caution to get so far away ; rifle-bullets are apt 
to glance and come whizzing about people^s ears, 
if they are fired in the neighborhood of houses. 
Dick satisfied himself that he could be tolerably 
sure of hitting a pane of glass at a distance of 
thirty rods, more or less, and that, if there hap* 
pened to be anything behind it, the glass would 
not materially alter the force or direction of the 
bullet 

About this time it occurred to him also that 
there was an old accomplishment of his which 
he wmuld be in danger of losing for want of 
practice, if he did not take some opportunity to 
try his hand and regain its cunning, if it had be 
gun to be diminished by disuse. For his firs* 
trial, he chose an evening when the moon was 
shining, and after the hour when the Rocklantf 


ELSIE VENNER. 


m 


people were like to be stirring abroad. He was 
BO far established now that he could do much as 
he pleased without exciting remark. 

The prairie horse he rode, the mustang of the 
Pampas, wild as he was, had been trained to take 
part in at least one exercise. This was th 
accomplishment in which Mr. Richard now pro 
posed to try himself. For this purpose he sought 
the implement of which, as it may be remem- 
bered, he had once made an incidental use, — the 
lassoj or long strip of hide with a slip-noose at 
the end of it. He had been accustomed to play- 
ing with such a thong from his boyhood, and had 
become expert in its use in capturing wild cattle 
in the course of his adventures. Unfortunately, 
there were no wild bulls likely to be met with in 
the neighborhood, to become the subjects of his 
skill. A stray cow in the road, an ox or a horse 
in a pasture, must serve his turn, — dull beasts, 
but moving marks to aim at, at any rate. 

Never, since he had galloped in the chase over 
the Pampas, had Dick Venner felt such a sense 
of life and power as when he struck the long 
spurs into his wild horse’s flanks, and dashed 
along the road with the lasso lying like a coiled 
snake at the saddle-bow. In skilful hands, the 
silent, bloodless noose, flying like an arrow, but 
not like that leaving a wound behind it, — sud- 
den as a pistol-shot, but without the tell-tale 
explosion, — is one of the most fearful and mys- 
terious weapons that arm the hand of man. The 


410 


ELSIE VENNER. 


old Komans knew how formidable, even in con* 
test with a gladiator equipped with sword, helmet, 
and shield, was the almost naked retiariuSy with 
his net in one hand and his three-pronged javelin 
in the other. Once get a net over a man’s head^ 
or a cord round his neck, or, what is more fre- 
quently done nowadays, bonnet him by knocking 
his hat down over his eyes, and he is at the 
mercy of his opponent. Our soldiers who served 
against the Mexicans found this out too well. 
Many a poor fellow has been lassoed by the fierce 
riders from the plains, and fallen an easy victim 
to the captor who had snared him in the fatal 
noose. 

But, imposing as the sight of the wild hunts- 
men of the Pampas might have been, Dick could 
not help laughing at the mock sublimity of his 
situation, as he tried his first experiment on -an 
unhappy milky mother who had strayed from her 
herd and was wandering disconsolately along 
the road, laying the dust, as she went, with 
thready streams from her swollen, swinging ud- 
ders. “ Here goes the Don at the windmill ! ” 
said Dick, and tilted full speed at her, whirling 
the lasso round his head as he rode. The crea- 
ture swerved to one side of the way, as the wild 
horse and his rider came rushing down upon 
her, and presently turned and ran, as only cows 

and it wouldn’t be safe to say it — can rua 

Just before he passed, — at twenty or thirty fee^ 
5«om her, — the lasso shot from his hand, un 


ELSIE VENNER. 


411 


coiling as it flew, and in an instant its loop was 
round her horns. “ Well cast ! ” said Dick, as 
he galloped up to her side and dexterously dis- 
engaged the lasso. “ Now for a horse on the 
un ! ” 

He had the good luck to find one, presently, 
grazing in a pasture at the road-side. Taking 
down the rails of the fence at one point, he drove 
the horse into the road and gave chase. It was 
a lively young animal enough, and was easily 
roused to a pretty fast pace. As his gallop grew 
more and more rapid, Dick gave the reins to the 
mustang, until the two horses stretched them- 
selves out in their longest strides. If the first 
feat looked like play, the one he was now to 
attempt had a good deal the appearance of real 
work. He touched the mustang with the spur, 
and in a few fierce leaps found himself nearly 
abreast of the frightened animal he was chasing. 
Once more he whirled the lasso round and round 
over his head, and then shot it forth, as the 
rattlesnake shoots his head from the loops against 
which it re.sts. The noose was round the horse’s 
neck, and in another instant was tightened so 
as almost to stop his breath. The prairie horse 
inew the trick of the cord, and leaned away 
from the captive, so as to keep the thong tensely 
stretched between his neck and the peak of the 
saddle to which it was fastened Struggling was 
of no use with a halter round nis windpipe, and 
he very soon began to tremble and stagger, — 


412 


ELSIE VENNEK. 


blind, no doubt, and with a roaring in his ears as 
of a thousand battle-trumpets, — at any rate 
subdued and helpless. That was enough. Dick 
loosened his lasso, wound it up again, laid it like 
a pet snake in a coil at his saddle-bow, turned 
his horse, and rode slowly along towards the 
mansion-house. 

The place had never looked more stately and 
beautiful to him than as he now saw it in the 
moonlight. The undulations of the land, — the 
grand mountain-screen which sheltered the man- 
sion from the northern blasts, rising with all its 
hanging forests and parapets of naked rock high 
towards the heavens, — the ancient mansion, with 
its square chimneys, and body-guard of old trees, 
and cincture of low walls with marble-pillared 
gateways, — the fields, with their various cover- 
ings, — the beds of flowers, — the plots of turf, 
one with a gray column in its centre bearing a 
sun-dial on which the rays of the moon were idly 
shining, another with a white stone and a nar- 
row ridge of turf, — over all these objects, har- 
monized with all their infinite details into one 
fair whole by the moonlight, the prospective heir 
as he deemed himself, looked with admiring eyes 

Bat while he looked, the thought rose up in 
ais mind like waters from a poisoned fountain, 
that there was a deep plot laid to cheat him of 
the inheritance which by a double claim he meant 
to call his own. Every day this ice-cold beauty 
this dangerous, handsome cousin of his, went up 


ELSIE VEJ^NER. 


413 


to that place, — that usher’s girl-trap. Every day, 
— regularly now, — it used to be different. Did 
she go only to get out of his, her cousin’s, reach ? 
Was she not rather becoming more and more in- 
volved in the toils of this plotting Yankee ? 

If Mr. Bernard had shown himself at that mo- 
ment a few rods in advance, the chances are that 
in less than one minute he would have found 
himself with a noose round his neck, at the heels 
of a mounted horseman. Providence spared him 
for the present. Mr. Richard rode his horse 
quietly round to the stable, put him up, and pro- 
ceeded towards the house. He got to his bed 
Avithout disturbing the family, but could not 
sleep. The idea had fully taken possession of 
his mind that a deep intrigue was going on which 
would end by bringing Elsie and the school-mas- 
ter into relations fatal to aU his own hopes. With 
that ingenuity which always accompanies jeal- 
ousy, he tortured every circumstance of the last 
few weeks so as to make it square with this be- 
lief. From this vein of thought he naturally passed 
to a consideration of every possible method by 
which the issue he feared might be avoided. 

Mr. Richard talked very plain language with 
ttimself in all these inward colloquies. Suppos- 
ing it came to the worst, what could be done 
then ? First, an accident might happen to the 
school-master which should put a complete and 
final check upon his projects and contrivances. 
The particular accident which might interrupt his 


414 


ELSIE VENNES. 


career must, evidently, be determined Dy circum- 
stances; but it must be of a nature to explain 
itself without the necessity of any particular per- 
son’s becoming involved in the matter. It would 
be unpleasant to go into particulars ; but every- 
body knows well enough that men sometimes 
get in the way of a stray bullet, and that young 
persons occasionally do violence to themselves in. 
various modes, — by fire-arms, suspension, and 
other means, — in consequence of disappoint- 
ment in love, perhaps, oftener than from other 
motives. There was still another kind of acci- 
dent which might serve his purpose. If anything 
should happen to Elsie, it would be the most 
natural thing in the world that his uncle should 
adopt him, his nephew and only near relation, as 
his heir. Unless, indeed. Uncle Dudley should 
take it into his head to marry again. In that 
case, where would he, Dick, be ? This was the 
most detestable complication which he could 
conceive of. And yet he had noticed — he could 
not help noticing — that his uncle had been very 
attentive to, and, as it seemed, very much pleased 
with, that young woman from the school. What 
iid that mean ? Was it possible that he was 
going to take a fancy to her ? 

It made him wild to think of all the several 
contingencies which might defraud him of that 
good-fortune which seemed but just now within 
his grasp. He glared in the darkness at imag 
mary faces : sometimes at that of the handsome 


ELSIE VENNER. 


415 


treacherous school-master ; sometimes at that of 
the meek-looking, but, no doubt, scheming, lady- 
teacher ; sometimes at that of the dark gir] whom 
he was ready to make his wife ; sometimes at 
that of his much respected uncle, who, of course, 
could not be allowed to peril the fortunes of his 
relatives by forming a new connection. It was 
a frightful perplexity in which he found himself, 
because there was no one single life an accident 
to which would be sufficient to insure the fitting 
and natural course of descent to the great Dud- 
ley property. If it had been a simple question 
of helping forward a casualty to any one person, 
there was nothing in Dick’s habits of thought and 
living to make that a serious difficulty. He had 
been so much with lawless people, that a life be- 
tween his wish and his object seemed only as an 
obstacle to be removed, provided the object were 
worth the risk and trouble. But if there were 
two or three lives in the way, manifestly that al- 
•ered the case. 

His Southern blood was getting impatient. 
There was enough of the New-Englander about 
him to make him calculate his chances before he 
struck; but his plans were liable to be defeated 
at any moment by a passionate 'mpulse such as 
the dark-hued races of Southern Europe and their 
descendants are liable to. He lay in his bed, 
sometimes arranging plans to meet the various 
difficulties already mentimiod, sometimes getting 
tnto a paroxysm of blind rage in the perplexity 


416 


ELSIE VENNER. 


of considering what object he should select as the 
one most clearly in his way. On the whole 
there could be no doubt where the most threat- 
ening of all his embarrassments lay. It was ir 
the probable growing relation between Elsie and 
the school-master. If it should prove, as it seemed 
likely, that there was springing up a serious at- 
tachment tending to a union between them, he 
knew what he should do, if he was not quite so 
sure how he should do it. 

There was one thing at least which might 
favor his projects, and which, at any rate, would 
serve to amuse him. He could, by a little quiet 
observation, find out what were the school-mas- 
ter’s habits of life : whether he had any routine 
which could be calculated upon ; and under what 
circumstances a strictly private interview of a 
few minutes with him might be reckoned on, in 
case it should be desirable. He could also very 
probably learn some facts about Elsie : whethei 
the young man was in the habit of attending her 
on her way home from school ; whether she 
stayed about the school-room after the other girls 
had gone ; and any incidental matters of interest 
which might present themselves. 

He was getting more and more restless for 
want of some excitement. A mad gallop, a visit 
to Mrs. Blanche Creamer, who had taken such 
a fancy to him, or a chat with the Widow Row 
ens, who was very lively in her talk, for all hei 
sombre colors, and reminded him a good deal of 


ELSIE VENNEK. 


417 


Bome of his earlier friends, the senoritas^ — all 
l.hese were distractions, to be sure, but not enough 
to keep his fiery spirit from fretting itself in long- 
ings for more dangerous excitements. The thought 
of getting a knowledge of all Mr. Bernard’s ways, 
60 that he would be in his power at any moment, 
was a happy one. 

For some days after this he followed Elsie at a 
long distance behind, to watch her until she got 
to the school-house. One day he saw Mr. Ber- 
nard join her: a mere accident, very probably, 
for it was only once this happened. She came 
on her homeward way alone, — quite apart from 
the groups of girls who strolled out of the school- 
house yard in company. Sometimes she was be- 
hind them all, — which was suggestive. Could 
she have stayed to meet the school-master ? 

If he could have smuggled himself into the 
school, he would have liked to watch her there, 
and see if there was not some understanding 
betw^een her and the master which betrayed itself 
by look or word. But this was beyond the limits, 
of his audacity, and he had to content himself 
with such cautious observations as could be made 
at a distance. With the aid of a pocket-glass he 
could make out persons with ^ut the risk of being 
ol:)serv^cd himself. 

Mr. Silas Peckham’s corps of instructors was 
0ot expected to be off duty or to stand at ease 
•or any considerable length of time. Sometimes 
Mr. Bernard, who had more freedom than the 
27 


418 


ELSIE VENNEK. 


rest, would go out for a ramble in the daytime 
but more frequently it would be in the evening 
after the hour of “ retiring,” as bedtime was ele* 
gantly termed by the young ladies of the Apol* 
linean Institute. He would then not unfrequentl 
walk out alone in the common roads, or climb up 
the sides of The Mountain, which seemed to be 
one of his favorite resorts. Here, of course, it 
was impossible to follow him with the eye at a 
distance. Dick had a hideous, gnawing suspicion 
that somewhere in these deep shades the school- 
master might meet Elsie, whose evening wander- 
ings he knew so well. But of this he was not 
able to assure himself. Secrecy was necessary to 
his present plans, and he could not compromise 
himself by over-eager curiosity. One thing he 
learned with certainty. The master returned, 
after his walk one evening, and entered the build- 
ing where his room was situated. Presently a 
light betrayed the window of his apartment. 
From a wooded bank, some thirty or forty rods 
from this building, Dick Venner could see the 
interior of the chamber, and watch the master 
as he sat at his desk, the light falling strongly 
upon his face, intent upon the book or manuscript 
j)efore him. Dick contemplated him very long in 
this attitude. The sense of watching his every 
•notion, himself meanwhile utterly unseen, was 
delicious. How little the master was thinking 
vhat eyes were on him! 

Well, — there were two things quite certain 


ELSIE VENNER. 


413 


One was, that, if he chose, he could meet the 
school-master alone, either in the road or in a 
more solitary place, if he preferred to watch his 
chance for an evening or two. The other was, 
that he commanded his position, as he sat at hia 
desk in the evening, in such a way that there 
would be very little difficulty, — so far as that 
went ; of course, however, silence is always pref- 
erable to noise, and there is a great difference in 
the marks left by different casualties. Very likely 
nothing would come of all this espionage ; but, 
at any rate, the first thing to be done with a man 
you want to have in your power is to learn his 
habits. 

Since the tea-party at the Widow Rowens’s, 
Elsie had been more fitful and moody than ever, 
Dick understood all this well enough, you know. 
It was the working of her jealousy against that 
young school-girl to whom the master had de- 
voted himself for the sake of piquing the heiress 
of the Dudley mansion. Was it possible, in any 
way, to exasperate her irritable nature against 
him, and in this way to render her more accessi- 
ble to his own advances ? It was difficult to in- 
fluence her at all. She endured his company 
wilhout seeming to enjoy it. She watched him 
with that strange look of hers, sometimes as if 
she were on her guard against him, sometimes as 
if she would like to strike at him as in that fit of 
childish passion. She ordered him about with a 
oaughty indifference which reminded him of his 


120 


ELSIE VENNER. 


own way with the dark-eyed women whom he 
had known so well of old. All this added a secret 
pleasure to the other motives he had for worry- 
ing her with jealous suspicions. He knew she 
brooded silently on any grief thai poisoned her 
comfort, — that she fed on it, as it were, until it 
ran with every drop of blood in her veins, — and 
that, except in some paroxysm of rage, of which 
he himself was not likely the second time to be 
the object, or in some deadly vengeance wrought 
secretly, against which he would keep a sharp 
lookout, so far as he was concerned, she had 
no outlet for her dangerous, smouldering pas- 
sions. 

Beware of the woman who cannot find free 
utterance for all her stormy inner life either in 
words or song ! So long as a woman can talk, 
there is nothing she cannot bear. If she cannot 
have a companion to listen to her woes, and has 
no musical utterance, vocal or instrumental, — 
then, if she is of the real woman sort, and has 
a few heartfuls of wild blood in her, and you 
have done her a wrong, — double-bolt the dooi 
which she may enter on noiseless slipper at mid- 
night, — look twice before you taste of any cup 
whose draught the shadow of her hand may 
have darkened ! 

But let her talk, and, above all, cry, or, if she 
'.s one of the coarser-grained tribe, give her the 
•■un of all the red-hot ^expletives in the language 


ELSIE VENNER. 


421 


and let her blister her lips with them until she is 
tired, she will sleep like a lamb after it, and you 
may take a cup of coffee from her without stirring 
it up to look for its sediment. 

So, if she can sing, or play on any musical in* 
Btrumcnt, all her wickedness will run off through 
her throat or the tips of her fingers. How many 
ti*agedies find their peaceful catastrophe in fierce 
roulades and strenuous bravuras ! How many 
murders are executed in double-quick time upon 
the keys which stab the air with their dagger- 
strokes of sound ! What would our civilization 
be without the piano ? Are not Erard and Broad- 
wood and Chickering the true humanizers of our 
time ? Therefore do I love to hear the all-per- 
vading turn turn jarring the walls of little parlors 
in houses with double door-plates on their portals, 
looking out on streets and courts which to know 
is to be unknown, and where to exist is not to 
live, according to any true definition of living 
Therefore complain I not of modern degeneracy, 
when, even from the open window of the small 
unlovely farm-house, tenanted by the hard-handed 
man of bovine flavors and the flat-patterned wom- 
an of broken-down countenance, issue the same 
familiar sounds. For who knows that Almira, 
but for these keys, which throb away her wild 
impulses in harmless discords, would not have 
been floating, dead, in the brown stream which 
slides through the meadows by her father’s door, 
— or living, with that other current which runs 


422 


ELSIE VENNER. 


beneath the gas-7ights over the slimy pavement, 
lihoking with wretched weeds that were once in 
spotless flower? 

Poor Elsie ! She never sang nor played. She 
never shaped her inner life in words : such utter- 
ance was as much denied to her nature as com- 
mon articulate speech to the deaf mute. Her 
only language must be in action. Watch her 
well by day and by night, Old Sophy ! watch her 
well ! or the long line of her honored name may 
close in shame, and the stately mansion of the 
Dudleys remain a hissing and a reproach till iti 
roof is buried in its cellar! 


/ 


BXSIE VENyEH 


423 


CHAPTER XXIV. 

ON HIS TRACKS. 

“ Abel ! ” said the old Doctor, one morning, 
* after you’ve harnessed Caustic, come into the 
study a few minutes, will you ? ” 

Abel nodded. He was a man of few words, 
and he knew that the “ will you ” did not require 
an answer, being the true New-England way of 
rounding the corners of an employer’s order, — a 
tribute to the personal independence of an Amer- 
ican citizen. 

The hired man came into the study in the 
course of a few minutes. His face was perfectly 
still, and he waited to be spoken to ; but the 
Doctor’s eye detected a certain meaning in his 
expression, which looked as if he had some' 
thing to communicate. 

“ Well? ” said the Doctor 

“ He’s up to mischief o’ some kind, I guess,’’ 
said Abel. “ I jest hapoened daown by the man- 
Kion-haouse last night, ’n’ he come aout o’ the gate 
on that queer-lookin’ creatur’ o his. I watched 
him, ’n’ he rid, very slow, all raouir by the Insti- 
nct, ’n’ acted as ef he was spyin’ abaout. He 


424 


ELSIE VENDER. 


looks to me like a man that’s calc’latin’ to do 
some kind of ill-turn to somebody. I shouldn’t 
like to have him raoun’ me, ’f there wa’n’t a 
pitchfork or an eel-spear or some sech weep’n 
within reach. He may be all right ; but J don't 
like his looks, ’n’ I don’t see what he’s lurkin 
raoun’ the Institoot for, after folks is abed.” 

“ Have you watched him pretty close for the 
last few days ? ” said the Doctor. 

“ W’il, yes, — I’ve had my eye on him consid’- 
ble o’ the time. I haf to be pooty shy abaout it, 
or he’ll find aout th’t I’m on his tracks. I don’ 
want him to get a spite ag’inst me, ’f I c’n help it, 
he looks to me like one o’ them kind that kerriea 
what they call slung-shot, ’n’ hits ye on the side 
o’ xh’ head with ’em so suddin y’ never know 
what hurts ye.” 

‘‘ Why,” said the Doctor, sharply, — ^‘have you 
ever seen him with any such weapon about 
him ? ” 

“ W’ll, no, — I caan’t say that I hev,” Abel 
answered. “ On’y he looks kin’ o’ dangerous. 
Maybe he’s all jest ’z he ought to be, — I caan’t 
say that he a’n’t, — but he’s aout late nights, ’n’ 
lurkin’ raoun’ jest ’z ef he wus spyin’ somebody; 
’n’ somchaow I caan’t help mistrustin’ them Port- 
agee-lookin’ fellahs. I caan’t keep the run o’ 
this chap all the time ; but I’ve a notion that old 
black woman daown ’t the mansion-haouse knows 
z much abaout him ’z anybody.” 

The Doctor paused a moment, after hearing 


ELSIE VEIIKEE. 


425 


this report from his private detective, and then 
got into his chaise, and turned Caustic’s head in 
the direction of the Dudley mansion. He had 
been suspicious of Dick from the first He did 
not like his mixed blood, nor his looks, nor hia 
ways. He had formed a conjecture about hia 
projects early. He had made a slirewd guess aa 
to the probable jealousy Dick would feel of the 
school-master, had found out something of his 
movements, and had cautioned Mr. Bernard, — * 
as w^e have seen. He felt an interest in the young 
man, — a student of his own profession, an intel- 
ligent and ingenuously unsuspecting young fel- 
low, who had been thrown by accident into the 
companionship or the neighborhood of two per- 
sons, one of whom he knew to be dangerous, and 
the other he believed instinctively might be capa- 
ble of crime. 

The Doctor rode down to the Dudley mansion 
solely for the sake of seeing Old Sophy. He was 
lucky enough to find her alone in her kitchen. 
He began talldng with her as a physician; he 
wanted to know how her rheumatism had been. 
The shrew^d old woman saw through all that with 
her little beady black eyes. It was something 
quite diflerent he had come for, and Old Sophv 
answered very briefly fo"* her aches and ails. 

“ Old folks’ bones a’n’t like young folks’,” she 
said. “ It’s the Lord’s doin’s, ’n’ ’t a’n’t much 
matter. I sha’n be long roun’ this kitchen. It’s 
the young Missis, Doctor, — it’s our Elsie, — it’s 


426 


ELSIE VENNER. 


the baby, as we use’ t’ call her, — don’ you lemem* 
ber, Doctor? Seventeen year ago, ’n’ her pool 
mother cryin’ for her, — ‘Where is she? where is 
she ? Let me see her ! ’ — ’n’ how I run up-stairs, 
— - I could run then, — ’n’ got the coral necklace 
’ll’ put it round her little neck, ’n’ then showed 
her to her mother, — ’n’ how her mother looked at 
her, ’n’ looked, ’n’ then put out her poor thin fin- 
gers ’n’ lifted the necklace, — ’n’ fell right back on 
her piller, as white as though she was laid out to 
bury?” 

The Doctor answered her by silence and a look 
of grave assent. He had never chosen to let Old 
Sophy dwell upon these matters, for obvious rea- 
sons. The girl must not grow up haunted by 
perpetual fears and prophecies, if it were possible 
to prevent it. 

“ Well, how has Elsie seemed of late ?” he said, 
after this brief pause. 

The old woman shook her head. Then she 
looked up at the Doctor so steadily and search- 
iiigly that the diamond eyes of Elsie herself could 
hardly have pierced more deeply. 

The Doctor raised his head, by his habitual 
movement, and met the old woman’s look with 
his own calm and scrutinizing gaze, sharpened by 
the glasses through which he now saw her. 

Sophy spoke presently in an awed tone, as if 
telling a vision. 

“ W'e shall be havin’ trouble before long 
The’ ’e somethin’ cnomin’ from the Lord. I’vi 


ELSIE VENNER. 


427 


liad dreams, Doctor. It’s many a year I’ve 
been a-dreamin’, but now they’re cornin’ over ’n’ 
ovex the same thing. Three times I’ve dreamed 
one thing, Doctor, — one thing ! ” 

And what was that ? ” the Doctor said, with 
that shade of curiosity in his tone which a meta- 
physician would probably say is an index of a 
certain tendency to belief in the superstition to 
which the question refers. 

“ I ca’n’ jestly tell y’ what it was. Doctor,” the 
old woman answered, as if bewildered and trying 
to clear up her recollections ; “ but it was some- 
thin’ fearful, with a great noise ’n’ a great cryin’ 
o’ people, — like the Las’ Day, Doctor! The 
Lord have mercy on my poor chil’, ’n’ take care 
of her, if anything happens! But I’s feared 
she’ll never live to see the Las’ Day, ’f ’t don’ 
come pooty quick.” 

Poor Sophy, only the third generation from 
cannibalism, was, not unnaturally, somewhat con- 
fused in her theological notions. Some of the 
Second- Advent preachers had been about, and 
circulated their predictions among the kitchen- 
population of Rockland. This was the way in 
which it happened that she mingled her fears in 
such a strange manner with their doctrines. 

The Doctor answered solemnly, that of the day 
and hoiu: we knew not, out it became us to be 
always ready. — “Is there anything going on in 
die household difierent from common ? ’* 

Old Sophy’s wrinkled face looked as full 


^LSIE VENNEE. 


jfe and intelligence, when she turned it full upon 
the Doctor, as if she had slipped off her infirmities 
and years like an outer garment. All those fine 
instincts of observation which came straight to 
her from her savage grandfather looked out of her 
little eyes. She had a kind of faith that the Doc» 
tor was a mighty conjurer, who, if he would, 
could bewitch any of them. She had relieved 
her feelings by her long talk with the minister, 
but the Doctor was the immediate adviser of the 
family, and had watched them through all their 
troubles. Perhaps he could tell them what to do. 
She had but one real object of affection in the 
world, — this child that she had tended from in- 
fancy to womanhood. Troubles were gathering 
thick round her ; how soon they would break 
upon her, and blight or destroy her, no one could 
tell; but there was nothing in all the catalogue 
of terrors which might not come upon the house- 
hold at any moment. Her own wits had sharp- 
ened themselves in keeping watch by day and 
night, and her face had forgotten its age in the 
excitement which gave life to its features. 

“ Doctor,’’ Old Sophy said, “ there’s strange 
things goin’ on here by night and by day. I don’ 
like that man, — that Dick, — I never liked him. 
He giv’ me some o’ these things I’ got on ; I take 
’em ’cos I know it make him mad, if I no take 
em; I wear ’em, so that he needn’ feel as if I 
didn’ like him ; but. Doctor, I hate him, — jes’ as 
much as a member o’ the church has the Lord’s 
leave to hate anybody.” 


ELSIE VENNER. 


429 


Her eyes sparkled with the old savage light, as 
if her ill-will to Mr. Richard Venner might per- 
haps go a little farther than the Christian limit 
she had assigned. Bat remember that her grand- 
ather was in the habit of inviting his friends to 
line with him upon the last enemy he had bagged, 
and that her grandmother’s teeth were filed down 
o points, so that they were as sharp as a shark’s. 

“ What is that you have seen about Mr. Richard 
V^enner that gives you such a spite against him, 
Sophy ? ” asked the Doctor. 

“ What I’ seen ’bout Dick Venner?” she repliea, 
fiercely. “ I’ll tell y’ what I’ seen. Dick wan’s 
to marry our Elsie, — that’s what he wan’s ; ’n’ 
he don’ love her, Doctor, — he hates her. Doctor, 
as bad as I hate him ! He wan’s to marry our 
Elsie, ’n’ live here in the big house, ’n’ have nothin’ 
to do but jes’ lay still ’n’ watch Massa Venner ’n’ 
see how long ’t ’ll take him to die, ’n’ ’f he don 
die fas’ ’nufF, help him some way t’ die fasser ! — 
Come close up t’ me. Doctor ! I wan’ t’ tell you 
somethin’ I tol’ th’ minister t’other day. Th’ min- 
ister, he come down ’n’ prayed ’n’ talked good, — 
he’s a good man, that Doctor Honeywood, ’n’ I 
tol’ him all ’bout our Elsie, — but he didn’ tell no- 
body what to do to stop all what I been dreamin’ 
about happenin’. Come close up to me. Doctor! ” 

The Doctor drew his chair close up to that of 
the old woman. 

“ Doctor, nobody mus’n never marry our Elsie ’s 
ong ’s she lives ! Nobody mus’n’ never live with 


430 


ELSIE VENNER. 


Elsie but OP Sophy ; ^n’ OF Sophy won^t iievei 
die *s long ’s Elsie ’s alive to be took care of. But 
Ps feared, Doctor, Ps greatly feared Elsie wan’ to 
marry somebody. The’ ’s a young gen’l’m’n up at 
that school where she go, — so some of ’em tells 
me, — ’n’ she loves t’ see him ’n’ talli wi’ him, ’n’ 
she talks about him when she’s asleep sometimes. 
She mus’n’ never marry nobody. Doctor ! If she 
do, he die, certain ! ” 

“ If she has a fancy for the young man up at 
the school there,” the Doctor said, “ I shouldn’t 
think there would be much danger from Dick.” 

“ Doctor, nobody know nothin’ ’bout Elsie but 
OF Sophy. She no like any other creatur’ th’t 
ever drawed the bref o’ life. K she ca’n’ marry 
one man ’cos she love him, she marry another man 
’cos she hate him.” 

Marry a man because she hates him, Sophy ? 
No woman ever did such a thing as that, or ever 
will do it.” 

“ Who toF you Elsie was a woman. Doctor ? ” 
said Old Sophy, with a flash of strange intelli 
gence in her eyes. 

The Doctor’s face showed that he was startled. 
The old woman could not know much about 
Elsie that he did not know ; but what strange su- 
perstition had got into her head, he was puzzled 
to guess. He had better follow Sophy’s lead and 
find out what she meant. 

“ I should caU Elsie a woman, and a very liana 
ionie one,” he said. “ You don’t mean that shi 


ELSIE VENNER 


431 


nas any mark about her, except — you know — 
under the necklace? ’’ 

The old woman resented the thought of any de* 
formity about her darling. 

“ I didn’ say she had nothin’ — but jes’ that — 
you know. My beauty have anything ugly? 
She’s the beautifullest-shaped lady that ever liad 
a shinin’ silk gown drawed over her shoulders. 
On’y she a’n’t like no other, woman in none of her 
ways. She don’t cry ’n’ laugh like other women. 
An’ she ha’n’ got the same kind o’ feehn’s as other 
women. — Do you know that young gen’l’m’n up 
at the school, Doctor ? ” 

“Yes, Sophy, I’ve met him sometimes. He’s 
a very nice sort of young man, handsome, too, 
and I don’t much wonder Elsie takes to him. 
Tell me, Sophy, what do you think would hap- 
pen, if he should chance to fall in love with Elsie, 
and she with him, and he should marry her ? ” 

“ Put your ear close to my lips. Doctor, dear ! ” 
She whispered a little to the Doctor, then added 
aloud, “ He die, — that’s all.” 

“ But surely, Sophy, you a’n’t afraid to have 
Dick marry her, if she would have him for any 
reason, are you ? He can take care of himself, if 
anybody can.” 

“ Doctor ! ” Sophy answered, “ nobody can take 
caro of hisself that live wi’ Elsie . Nobody never 
In all this worl’ mus’ live wi’ Elsie but Ol’ Sophy 
I tell you. You don’ think I care for Dick? 
What do I care, if Dick Vernier die ? He wan’f 


132 


ELSIE VENNER. 


to marry our Elsie so to live in the big house 
’ll’ get all the money ’n’ all the silver things ’n’ 
all the chists full o’ linen ’n’ beautiful clothes! 
Tliat’s what Dick wan’s. An’ he hates Elsie ’ccs 
she don’ like him. But if he marry Elsie, she’ll 
make him die some wrong way or other, ’n’ they’ll 
take her ’n’ hang her, or he’ll get mad with her 
’n’ choke her. — Oh, I know his chokin’ tricks ! — 
he don’ leave his keys roun’ for nothin’ ! ” 

“ What’s that you say, Sophy ? Tell me what 
you mean by all that.” 

So poor Sophy had to explain certain facts not 
in all respects to her credit. She had taken the 
opportunity of his absence to look about his cham- 
ber, and, having found a key in one of his draw- 
ers, had applied it to a trunk, and, finding that it 
opened the trunk, had made a kind of inspection 
for contraband articles, and, seeing the end of a 
leather thong, had followed it up until she saw 
that it finished with a noose, which, from certain 
appearances, she inferred to have seen service of 
at least doubtful nature. An unauthorized search ; 
but Old Sophy considered that a game of life and 
death was going on in the household, and that she 
was bound to look out for her darling. 

The Doctor paused a moment to think over this 
odd piece of information. Without sharing So- 
phy’s belief as to the kind of use this mischievous- 
looking piece of property had been put to, it was 
certainly very odd that Dick should have such 9 
thing at the bottom of his trunk. The Doctor re^ 


'ELSIE VENNER 


433 


membered reading or hearing something about 
the lasso and the lariat and the holas^ and had an 
indistinct idea that they had been sometimes used 
as weapons of warfare or private revenge ; but 
they were essentially a huntsman’s implements, 
after all, and it was not very strange that this 
young man had brought one of them with him. 
Not strange, perhaps, but worth noting. 

“ Do you really think Dick means mischief to 
anybody, that he has such dangerous-looking 
things ? ” the Doctor said, presently. 

“ I tell you. Doctor. Dick means to have Elsie. 
If he ca’n’ get her, he never let nobody else have 
her. Oh, Dick’s a dark man. Doctor ! I know 
him ! I ’member him when he was little boy, — 
he always cunnin’. I think he mean mischief to 
somebody. He come home late nights, — come 
in softly, — oh, I hear him ! I lay awake, ’n’ got 
sharp ears, — I hear the cats walkin’ over the 
roofs, — ’n’ I hear Dick Venner, when he comes 
up in his stockin’-feet as stUl as a cat. I think 
he mean mischief to somebody I no like his 
looks these las’ days. — Is that a very pooty 
gen’l’m’n up at the school-house. Doctor ? ” 

“ I told you he was good-looking. What if he 

. 8 ?” 

“ I should like to see him. Doctor, — I should 
ike to see the pooty gen’l’m’n that my poor Elsie 
.oves. She mus’n’ never marry nobody, — but, 
oh, Doctor, I should like to see him, ’n’ jes' thin\ 
a little how it would ha’ been, if the I^orrl ^ di' ‘ 
been so hard on Elsie ” 


434 


ELSIE VENNER. 


She wept and wung her hands. The kind 
Doctor was touched, and left her a moment to hei 
thoughts. 

“ And how does Mr. Dudley Venner take ah 
this ? ” he said, by way of changing the subject a 
little 

‘‘ Oh, Massa Venner, he good man, but he don* 
know nothin* *bout Elsie, as Ol* Sophy do. 1 
keep close by her ; I help her when she go to bed, 
*n* set by her sometime when she ’sleep ; I come 
to her in th* mornin’ *n’ help her put on her 
things.” — Then, in a whisper, — “ Doctor, Elsie 
lets or Sophy take off that necklace for her. 
What you think she do, *f anybody else tech 
it?” 

“ I don’t know, I’m sure, Sophy, — strike the 
person, perhaps.” 

“ Oh, yes, strike ’em ! but not with her ban’s. 
Doctor ! ” — The old woman’s significant panto- 
mime must be guessed at. 

“ But you haven’t told me, Sophy, what Mr 
Dudley Venner thinks of his nephew, nor wheth* 
er he has any notion that Dick wants to marry 
Elsie.” 

“ I tell you. Massa Venner, he good man, but 
he no see nothin’ ’bout what goes on here in the 
house. He sort o’ broken-hearted, you know, — 
Bort o’ giv’ up, — don’ know what to do wi’ Elsie 
!xcep’ say ‘ Yes, yes.’ Dick always look smilin 
'n’ behave well before him. One time I thought 
Massa Venner b’lieve Dick was goin’ to take tc 


ELSIE VENNER. 


435 


Elsie ; but now he don^ seem to take much notice 

— he kin’ o’ stupid-like ’bout sech things. It’s 
trouble, Doctor; ’cos Massa Venner bright man 
naterally, — ’n’ he’s got a great heap o’ books. 1 
don’ think Massa Venner never been jes’ heself 
Bence Elsie’s born. He done all he know how, — 
but, Doctor, that wa’n’ a great deal. You men- 
folks don’ know nothin’ ’bout these young gals ; 
’n’ ’f you knowed all the young gals that ever 
lived, y’ wouldn’ know nothin’ ’bout our Elsie.” 

“No, — but, Sophy, what I want to know is, 
whether you think Mr. Venner has any kind of 
suspicion about his nephew, — whether he has 
any notion that he’s a dangerous sort of fellow, 

— or whether he feels safe to have him about, 
or has even taken a sort of fancy to him.” 

“ Lor’ bless you, Doctor, Massa Venner no 
more idee ’f any mischief ’bout Dick than he 
has ’bout 1 you or me. Y’ see, he very fond o’ 
the Cap’n, — that Dick’s father, — ’n’ he live so 
long alone here, ’long wi’ us, that he kin’ o’ like 
to see mos’ anybody ’t ’s got any o’ th’ ol’ family- 
blood in ’em. He ha’n’t got no more suspicions 
’n a baby, — y’ never see sech a man ’n y’r life. 

kin’ o’ think he don’ care for nothin’ in this 
world ’xcep’ jes’ t’ do what Elsie wan’s him to 
The fus’ year after young Madam die he do 
nothin’ but jes’ set at the window ’n’ look out 
at her grave, ’n’ then come up ’n’ look at the 
baby’s neck ’n’ say, ‘ It ’5 fadin\ Sophy ^ a^nH it ? ’ 
n’ then go down in the stud^ ’n’ walk ’n’ walk, ’n’ 


436 


ELSIE VENNER. 


then kneel down ’n’ pray. Doctor, there was two 
places in the old carpet that was all threadbare, 
where his knees had worn ’em. An’ sometimes, 
— you remember ’bout all that, — he’d go off up 
into The Mountain, ’n’ be gone all day, ’n^ kill al 
the Ugly Things he could find up there. — Oh, 
Doctor, I don’ like to think o’ them days! — 
An’ by-’n’-by he grew kin’ o’ still, ’n’ begun to 
read a little, ’n’ ’t las’ he got ’s quiet ’s a lamb, 
’n’ that’s the way he is now. I think he’s got 
religion, Doctor; but he a’n’t so bright about 
what’s goin’ on, ’n’ I don’ believe he never 
Buspec’ nothin’ till somethin’ happens; — for the’ ’s 
somethin’ goin’ to happen, Doctor, if the Las’ 
Day doesn’ come to stop it ; ’n’ you mus’ tell us 
what to do, ’n’ save my poor Elsie, my baby that 
the Lord hasn’ took care of like all his other 
childer.” 

The Doctor assured the old woman that he 
was thinking a great deal about them all, and 
that there were other eyes on Dick besides her 
own. Let her watch him closely about the 
house, and he would keep a look-out elsewhere. 
If there was anything new, she must let him 
know at once. Send up one of the men-ser 
vants, and he would come down at a moment’s 
warning. 

There was really nothing definite against thio 
young man; but the Doctor was sure that he 
was meditating some evil design or other. He 
rode straight up to the Institute. There he sasv 


KLSEBi 


4g7 


Mr. Bernard, and had a brief conversation vwith 
him, principally on matters relating to hi? 'per- 
sonal interests. 

That evening, for some unknown reason, Mr. 
Bernard changed the place of his desk and drew 
down the shades of his windows. Late that 
night Mr. Richard Venner drew the charge of 
a rifle, and put the gun back among the fowl- 
ing-pieces, swearing that a leather halter wa» 
worth a dozen of it. 


438 


ELSIE VENNEB. 


CHAPTER XXV. 

THE PERILOUS HOUR. 

Up to this time Dick Venner had not decided 
on the particular mode and the precise period of 
relieving himself from the unwarrantable interfer- 
ence which threatened to defeat his plans. The 
luxury of feeling that he had his man in his 
power was its own reward. One who watches 
in the dark, outside, while his enemy, in utter 
unconsciousness, is illuminating his apartment 
and himself so that every movement of his head 
and every button on his coat can be seen and 
counted, experiences a peculiar kind of pleasure}, 
if he holds a loaded rifle in his hand, which he 
naturally hates to bring to its climax by testing 
his skill as a marksman upon the object of his 
attention. 

Besides, Dick had two sides in his nature, al- 
most as distinct as we sometimes observe in those 
persons who are the subjects of the condition 
known as double consciousness. On his New 
England side he was cunning and calculating 
always cautious, measuring his distance before 
he risked his stroke, as nicely as if he were 


ELSIE VENJ^ER. 


439 


throwing his lasso. But he was liable to inter* 
current fits of jealousy and rage, such as the 
light-hued races are hardly capable of conceiv- 
ing, — blinding paroxysms of passion, which for 
the time overmastered him, and which, if they 
found no ready outlet, transformed themselves 
into the more dangerous forces that worked 
through the instrumentality of his cool crafti- 
ness. 

He had failed as yet in getting any positive 
evidence that there was any relation between 
Elsie and the school-master other than such as 
might exist unsuspected and unblamed between 
a teacher and his pupil. A book, or a note, 
even, did not prove the existence of any senti- 
ment. At one time he would be devoured by 
suspicions, at another he would try to laugh 
himself out of them. And in the mean while 
he followed Elsie’s tastes as closely as he could, 
determined to make some impression upon her, 
— to become a habit, a convenience, a neces- 
sity, — whatever might aid him in the attain- 
ment of the one end which was now the aim 
of his life.. 

It was to humor one of her tastes already 
known to the reader, that he said to her one 
morning, — “Come, EHe, take your castanets 
and let us have a dance.” 

He had struck the right vein in the girl’s fancy 
for she was in the mood for this exercise, and very 
willingly led the way into one of the more empty 


440 


ELSIE VENNER. 


apartments. What there was in this particulai 
kind of dance which excited her it might not be 
easy to guess ; but those who looked in with the 
old Doctor, on a former occasion, and saw nor, 
will remember that she was strangely carried 
away by it, and became almost fearful in the 
vehemence of her passion. The sound of the 
castanets seemed to make her alive all over 
Dick knew well enough what the exhibition 
would be, and was almost afraid of her at 
these moments; for it was like the dancing 
mania of Eastern devotees, more than the ordi- 
nary light amusement of joyous youth, — a con- 
vulsion of the body and the mind, rather than 
a series of voluntary modulated motions. 

Elsie rattled out the triple measure of a 
saraband. Her eyes began to glitter more brill- 
iantly, and her shape to undulate in freer curves. 
Presently she noticed that Dick’s look was fixed 
upon her necklace. His face betrayed his curi- 
osity ; he was intent on solving the question, 
why she always wore something about her neck. 
The chain of mosaics she had on at that moment 
displaced itself at every step, and he was peering 
with malignant, searching eagerness to see if an 
unsunned ring of fairer hue than the rest of the 
surface, or any less easily explained peculiarity 
were hidden by her ornaments. 

She stopped suddenly, caught the chain of 
mosaics and settled it hastily in its place, flung 
down her castanets, drew herself back, acd stooo 


ELSIE VEKNER. 


441 


looking at him, with her head a little on one side, 
and her eyes narrowing in the way he haa Known 
80 long and well. 

“What is the matter, Cousin Elsie? What 
do you stop for ? ” he said. 

Elsie did not answer, but kept her eyes o 
him, full of malicious light. The jealousy which 
lay covered up under his surface-thoughts took 
this opportunity to break out. 

“ You wouldn’t act so, if you were dancing 
with Mr. Langdon, — would you, Elsie ? ” he 
asked. 

It was with some effort that he looked steadily 
at her to see the effect of his question. 

Elsie colored^ — not much, but still perceptibly. 
Dick could not remember that he had ever seen 
her show this mark of emotion before, in all his 
experience of her fitful changes of mood. It 
had a singular depth of significance, therefore, 
for him ; he knew how hardly her color c^me. 
Blushing means nothing, in some persons; iq oth- 
ers, it betrays a profound inward agit^^tiou, — a 
perturbation of the feelings far more trying than 
the passions which with many easily moved per- 
sons break forth in tears. All who have observed 
much are aware that some men, who have seen 
a good deal of life in its less chastened aspects 
and are anything but modest, will blush often 
and easily, while there are delicate and sensitive 
women who can faint, or go into fits, if nec- 
essary, but are very rarely seen to betray tbeii 


142 


ELSIE VENNER. 


feelings in their cheeks, even when their expres- 
sion shows that their inmost soul is blushing 
scarlet. 

Presently she answered, abruptly and scorn- 
fully,— 

“ Ml*. Langdon is a gentleman, and would not 
vex me as you do.’’ 

“ A gentleman ! ” Dick answered, with the 
most insulting accent, — “a gentleman! Come, 
Elsie, you’ve got the Dudley blood in your veins, 
and it doesn’t do for you to call this poor, sneak- 
ing school-master a gentleman ! ” 

He stopped short. Elsie’s bosom was heaving, 
the faint flush on her cheek was becoming a vivid 
glow. Whether it were shame or wrath, he saw 
that he had reached some deep-lying centre of 
emotion. There was no longer any doubt in 
his mind. With another girl these signs of con- 
fusion might mean little or nothing ; with her 
they were decisive and finaL Elsie Venner 
loved Bernard Langdon. 

The sudden conviction, absolute, overwhelm- 
’ng, which rushed iipurn him, had wellnigh led 
an explosion of wrath, and perhaps some 
terrible scene which might have fulfilled some 
of Old Sophy’s predictions. This, however, 
would never do. Dick’s face whitened with 
bis thoughts, but he kept still until he could 
8peak calmly. 

I’ve nothing against the young fellow,” he 
laid; “only I don’t think there’s anything quite 


ELSIE VENNEK. 


443 


good enough to keep the company of people that 
have the Dudley blood in them. You a’n’t as 
proud as I am. I can’t quite make up my mind 
to call a school-master a gentleman, though tliia 
one may be well enough. I’ve notliing against 
him, at any rate.” 

Elsie made no answer, but glided out of the 
room and slid away to her own apartment. She 
bolted the door and drew her curtains close. 
Then she threw herself on the floor, and fell 
into a dull, slow ache of passion, without tears 
without words, almost without thoughts. So 
she remained, perhaps, for a half-hour, at the 
end of which time it seemed that her passion 
had become a sullen purpose. She arose, and, 
looking cautiously round, went to the hearth, 
which was ornamented with curious old Dutch 
tiles, with pictures of Scripture subjects. One 
of these represented the lifting of the brazen 
serpent. She took a hair-pin from one of her 
braids, and, insinuating its points under the edge 
of the tile, raised it from its place. A small 
leaden box lay under the tile, which she opened, 
and, taking from it a little white powder, which 
she folded in a scrap of paper, replaced the box 
and the tile over it. 

Whether Dick had by any means got a knowl- 
edge of this proceeding, or whether he only sus- 
pected some unmentionable design on her part, 
there is no sufficient means of determining. At 
any rate, when they met. an hour or two aftei 


414 


ELSIE VENl^ER. 


these occurrences, he could not help noticing how 
easily she seemed to have got over her excitement. 
She was very pleasant with him, — too pleasant, 
Dick thought. It was not Elsie’s way to come out 
of a fit of anger so easily as that. She had con 
tnved some way of letting off her spite ; that wag 
certain. Dick was pretty cunning, as Old Sophy 
had said, and, whether or not he had any means 
of knowing Elsie’s private intentions, watched 
her closely, and was on his guard against acci- 
dents. 

For the first time, he took certain precautions 
with reference to his diet, such as were quite alien 
to his common habits. On coming to the dinner- 
table, that day, he complained of headache, took 
but little food, and refused the cup of coffee which 
Elsie offered him, saying that it did not agree 
with him when he had these attacks. 

Here was a new complication. Obviously 
enough, he could not live in this way, suspecting 
everything but plain bread and water, and hardly 
feeling safe in meddling with them. Not only 
had this school-keeping wretch come between 
him and the scheme by which he was to secure 
his future fortune, but his image had so infected 
his cousin’s mind that she was ready to try on 
him some of those tricks which, as he had heard 
hinted in the village, she had once before put in 
practice upon a person who had become odious 
to her. 

Something must be done, and at once, to meet 


ELSIE VENNER. 


445 


the double necessities of this case. Every day, 
while the young girl was in these relations with 
the young man, was only making matters worse 
They could exchange words and looks, they could 
arrange private interviews, they would be stoop 
ing together over the same book, her hair touching 
his cheek, her breath mingling with his, all the 
magnetic attractions drawing them together with 
strange, invisible effluences. As her passion for 
the school-master increased, her dislike to him, her 
cousin, would grow with it, and all his dangers 
would be multiplied. It was a fearful point he 
had reached. He was tempted at one moment to 
give up all his plans and to disappear suddenly 
from the place, leaving with the school-master, 
■who had come between him and his object, an 
anonymous token of his personal sentiments 
which would be remembered a good while in 
the history of the town of Rockland. This was 
but a momentary thought ; the great Dudley 
property could not be given up in that way. 

Something must happen at once to break up 
all this order of things. He could think of but 
one Providential event adequate to the emergen- 
cy, — an event foreshadowed by various recent 
circumstances, but hitherto floating in his mind 
only as a possibility. Its occurrence would at 
once change the course of Elsie s feelings, provid- 
ing her with something to think of besides mis- 
chief, and remove the accursed obstacle which 
was thwarting all his own projects. Every pof 


446 


ELSIE VENNEB. 


Bible motive, then, — his interest, his jealousy, hia 
longing for revenge, and now his fears for his own 
safety, — urged him to regard the happening of a 
certain casualty as a matter of simple necessity. 
This was the self-destruction of Mr. Bernard , 
Langdon. 

Such an event, though it might be surprising 
to many people, would not be incredible, nor 
without many parallel cases. He was poor, a 
miserable fag, under the control of that mean 
wretch up there at the school, who looked as if 
he had sour buttermilk in his veins instead of 
blood. He was in love with a girl above his 
station, rich, and of old family, but strange in all 
her ways, and it was conceivable that he should 
become suddenly jealous of her. Or she might 
have frightened him with some display of her 
peculiarities which had filled him with a sudden 
repugnance in the place of love. Any of these 
things were credible, and would make a probable 
story enough, — so thought Dick over to himself 
with the New-England half of his mind. 

Unfortunately, men will not always take them- 
selves out of the way when, so far as their neigh- 
bors are concerned, it would be altogether the 
most appropriate and graceful and acceptable 
service they could render. There was at this 
particular moment no special reason for believ 
ing that the school-master meditated any violence 
;0 his own person. On the contrary, there wa« 
good evidence that he was taking some care of 


ELSIE VENNER. 


447 


himself. He was looking well and in good spirits, 
and in the habit of amusing himself and exer- 
cising, as if to keep up his standard of health, 
especially of taking certain evening-walks, before 
referred to, at an hour when most of the Rock- 
land people had “ retired,” or, in vulgar language, 
“ gone to bed.” 

Dick Venner settled it, however, in his own 
mind, that Mr. Bernard Langdon must lay violent 
hands upon himself. He even went so far as to 
determine the precise hour, and the method in 
which the “ rash act,” as it would undoubtedly be 
called in the next issue of “ The Rockland Week- 
ly Universe,” should be committed. Time , — this 
evening. Method, — asphyxia, by suspension. It 
was, unquestionably, taking a great liberty with 
a man to decide that he should become felo de se 
without his own consent. Such, however, was 
the decision of Mr. Richard Venner with regard 
to jMr. Bernard Langdon. 

If everything went right, then, there would be 
a coroner’s inquest to-morrow upon what remained 
of that gentleman, found. suspended to the branch 
of a tree somewhere within a mile of the Apollin- 
ean Institute. The “ Weekly Universe ” would 
have a startling paragraph announcing a ‘‘ SAD 
EVENT! I!” which had “thrown the town into 
an intense state of excitement. Mr. Barnard 
Langdon, a well known teacher at the Appolinian 
Institute, was found, etc., etc. The vital spark 
Kras extinct. The motive to the rash act can onlv 


t48 


ELSIE VENNEB. 


be conjectured, but is supposed to be disapointed 
afTection. The name of an accomplished young 
lady of the highest respectability and great beauty 
Is mentioned in connection with this melencholy 
occurence.’’ 

Dick Venner was at the tea-table that evening, 
as usual. — No, he would take green tea, if she 
pleased, — the same that her father drank. It 
would suit his headache better. — Nothing, — he 
was much obliged to her. He would help himself^ 
— which he did in a little different way from com- 
mon, naturally enough, on account of his head- 
ache. He noticed that Elsie seemed a little ner- 
vous while she was rinsing some of the teacups 
before their removal. 

“ There’s something going on in that witch’s 
head,” he said to himself. “ I know her, — shp’d 
be savage now, if she hadn’t got some tricl in 
hand. Let’s see how she looks to-morrow I” 

Dick announced that he should go to bed early 
that evening, on account of this confounded head- 
ache which had been troubling him so much. In 
fact, he went up early, and locked his door after 
him, with as much noise as he could make. He 
then changed some part of his dress, so that it 
should be dark throughout, slipped off his boots, 
drew the lasso out from the bottom of the con- 
tents of his trunk, and, carrying that and his boots 
in his hand, opened his door softly, locked it after 
him, and stole down the back-stairs, so as to «(e' 
out of the house unnoticed. He went straight '> 


IXSIE VEITNER. 


449 


the stable and saddled the mustang. He took a 
rope from the stable with him, mounted his horse, 
and set forth in the direction of the Institute. 

Mr. Bernard, as we have seen, had not been 
very profoundly impressed by the old Doctor’s 
jautions, — enough, however, to follow out some 
of his hints which were not troublesome to attend 
to. He laughed at the idea of carrying a loaded 
pibiol about with him; but still it seemed only 
fair, as the old Doctor thought so much of the 
matter, to humor him about it. As for not going 
about when and where he liked, for fear he might 
have some lurking enemy, that was a thing not 
to be listened to nor thought of. There was 
nothing to be ashamed of or troubled about in 
any of his relations with the school-girls. Elsie, 
no doubt, showed a kind of attraction towards 
him, as did perhaps some others; but he had been 
perfectly discreet, and no father or brother or lover 
had any just cause of quarrel with him. To be 
sure, that dark young man at the Dudley man- 
sion-house looked as if he were his enemy, when 
he had met him ; but certainly there was nothing 
in their relations to each other, or in his own to 
Elsie, that would be like to stir such malice in 
his mind as would lead him to play any of his 
wild Southern tricks at his, Mr. Bernard’s, ex- 
pense. Yet he had a vague feeling that this 
young man was dangerous, and he had been 
given to understand that one of the risks he ran 
was from that quarter. - 


i50 


ELSIE VENILER. 


On this particular evening, he had a strange 
unusual sense of some impending peril. His 
recent interview with the Doctor, certain remarks 
which had been dropped in his hearing, but above 
all an unaccountable impression upon his spirits, 
all combined to fill his mind with a foreboding 
conviction that he was very near some overshad* 
owing danger. It was as the chiU of the ice- 
mountain toward which the ship is steering under 
full sad. He felt a strong impulse to see Helen 
Darley and talk with her. She was in the com- 
mon parlor, and, fortunately, alone. 

“ Helen,” he said, — for they were almost like 
brother and sister now, — “I have been thinking 
what you would do, if I should have to leave the 
school at short notice, or be taken away sud- 
denly by any accident.” 

“ Do ? ” she said, her cheek growing paler than 
its natural delicate hue, — “ why, I do not know 
how I could possibly consent to live here, if you 
left us. Since you came, my life has been al- 
most easy ; before, it was getting intolerable. 
You must not talk about going, my dear friend , 
you have spoiled me for my place. Who is there 
here that I can have any true society with, but 
you ? You would not leave us for another school, 
woixld you?” 

‘‘ No, no, my dear Helen,” jMr. Bernard said 
“ if it depends on myself, I shall stay out my 
full time, and enjoy your company and friend 
But pve^'vthiny is uncertain in this world 


ELSIE VENNER. 


451 


1 have been thinking that I might be wanted 
slsewhere, and called when I did not think of it ; 
— it was a fancy, perhaps, — but I can’t keep it 
out of my mind this evening. If any of my 
fancies should come true, Helen, there are two or 
three messages I want to leave with you. I have 
marked a book or two with a cross in pencil on 
the fly-leaf ; — these are for you. There is a little 
hymn-book I should like tv' have you give to 
Elsie from me; — it may be a kind of comfort 
to the poor ghl.” 

Helen’s eyes glistened as she interrupted 
him, — 

“ What do you mean ? You must not talli 
so, Mr. Langdon. Why, you never looked bet- 
ter in your life. Tell me now, you are not in 
earnest, are you, but only trying a little sentiment 
on me ? ” 

Mr. Bernard smiled, but rather sadly. 

“ About half in earnest,” he said. “ I have 
had some fancies in my head, — superstitions, I 
suppose, — at any rate, it does no harm to tell 
you what I should like to have done, if anything 
should happen, — very likely nothing ever wilL 
Send the rest of the booKS home, if you please, 
and write a letter to my mother. And, Helen, 
you will find one small volume in my desk en- 
veloped and directed, you will see to whom ; — 
give this with your own hands ; it is a keepsake.” 

The tears gathered in her eyes/ she could not 
speak at first. P**esently, — 


452 


ELSIE VENNER. 


“ Why, Bernard, my dear friend, my brother, it 
cannot be that you are in danger ? Tell me what 
it is, and, if I can share it with you, or counse* 
you in any way, it will only be paying back the 
great debt I owe you. No, no, — it can’t be 
true, — you are tired and worried, and your spirits 
have got depressed. I know what that is ; — I 
was sure, one winter, that I should die beford 
spring; but I lived to see the dandelions and 
buttercups go to seed. Come, tell me it was 
nothing but your imagination.” 

She felt a tear upon her cheek, but would not 
turn her face away from him; it was the tear 
of a sister. 

“ I am really in earnest, Helen,” he said. “ I 
don’t know that there is the least reason in the 
world for these fancies. If they all go off and 
nothing comes of them, you may laugh at me, if 
you like. But if there should be any occasion, 
remember my requests. You don’t believe in 
presentiments, do you ? ” 

“ Oh, don’t ask me, I beg you,” Helen an- 
swered. “ I have had a good many frights for 
every one real misfortune I have suffered. Some- 
times I have thought I was warned beforehand 
of coming trouble, just as many people are of 
changes in the weather, by some unaccountable 
feeling, — but not often, and I don’t like to talk 
about such things. I wouldn’t think about these 
fancies of yours. I don’t believe you have 
exercised enough; — don’t you think it’s con 


ELSIE VEN]S"ER. 


453 


finement in the school has made you ner- 
vous ? 

“ Perhaps it has ; but it happens that I have 
thought more of exercise lately, and have taken 
regular evening walks, besides playing my old 
gymnastic tricks every day.’’ 

They talked on many subjects, but through all 
he said Helen perceived a pervading tone of sad- 
ness, and an expression as of a dreamy forebod- 
ing of unknown evil. They parted at the usual 
hour, and went to their several rooms. The sad- 
ness of Mr. Bernard had sunk into the heart of 
Helen, and she mingled many tears with her 
prayers that evening, earnestly entreating that he 
might be comforted in his days of trial and pro- 
tected in his hour of danger. 

Mr. Bernard stayed in his room a short time 
before setting out for his evening walk. His eye 
fell upon the Bible his mother had given him 
when he left home, and he opened it in the New 
Testament at a venture. It happened that the 
first words he read were these, — “ Lest., coming 
suddenly^ he find you sleeping^ In the state of 
mind in which he was at the moment, the text 
startled him. It was like a supernatural warn* 
ing. He was not going to expose himself to an 
particular danger this evening; a walk in a quiet 
village was as free from risk a? Helen Barley or 
Ills own mother could ask; yet he had an unac- 
countable feeling of apprehension, without any 
definite object. At this moment he remembered 


454 


ELSIE VENNER. 


the old Doctor’s counsel, which he had sometiinei 
neglected, and, blushing at the feeling which led 
him to do it, he took the pistol his suspicious old 
friend had forced upon him, which he had put 
away loaded, and, thrusting it into his pocket, set 
out upon his walk. 

The moon was shining at intervals, for the 
night was partially clouded. There seemed to be 
nobody stirring, though his attention was unusu- 
ally awake, and he could hear the whirr of the 
bats overhead, and the pulsating croak of the 
frogs in the distant pools and marshes. Presently 
he detected the sound of hoofs at some distance, 
and, looking forward, saw a horseman coming in 
his direction. The moon was under a cloud at 
the moment, and he could only observe that the 
horse and his rider looked like a single dark ob- 
ject, and that they were moving along at an easy 
pace. Mr. Bernard was really ashamed of him- 
self, when he found his hand on the butt of his 
pistol. When the horseman was within a hun- 
dred and fifty yards of him, the moon shone out 
suddenly and revealed each of them to the other. 
The rider paused for a moment, as if carefully 
surveying the pedestrian, then suddenly put his 
horse to the full gallop, and dashed towards him 
rising at the same instant in his stirrups and 
swinging something round his head, — what, Mr. 
Bernard could not make out. It was a strange 
manoeuvre, — so strange and threatening in as- 
pect that the young man forgot his nervo^ 


ELSIE VEKKER. 


455 


In an instant, cocked his pistol, and waited to see 
what mischief all this meant. He did not wait 
ong. As the rider came rushing towards him, 
he made a rapid motion and something leaped 
hve-and-twenty feet through the air, in Mr. Ber- 
nard's direction. In an instant he felt a ling, 
as of a rope or thong, settle upon his shoulders. 
There was no time to think, — he would be lost 
in another second. He raised his pistol and fired 
— not at the rider, but at the horse. His aim 
was true ; the mustang gave one bound and fell 
lifeless, shot through the head. The lasso waa 
fastened to his saddle, and his last bound threw 
Mr. Bernard violently to the earth, where he lay 
motionless, as if stunned. 

In the mean time, Dick Venner, who had beer 
dashed down with his horse, was trying to extri 
cate himself, — one of his legs being held fas' 
under the animal, the long spur on his boot hav 
ing caught in the saddle-cloth. He found, how 
ever, that he could do nothing with his right arm 
his shoulder having been in some Avay injured ii 
his fall. But his Southern blood was up, and, ai 
he saw Mr. Bernard move as if he were coming 
to his senses, he struggled violently to free him- 
self. 

m have the dog, yet,’’ he said, — “ only lei 
cnc get at him with the itnife ! ” 

He had just succeeded in extricating his im- 
prisoned leg, and was ready to spring to his feet, 
when he was caught firmly by the throaty and 


156 


ELSIE VENNER. 


looking up, saw a clumsy barbed weapon, com- 
monly known as a hay-fork, within an inch of 
his breast. 

“ Hold OR there ! What ’n thunder V y' 
abaout, y’ darned Portagee ? ’’ said a voice, with 
a decided nasal tone in it, but sharp and reso- 
lute. 

Dick looked from the weapon to the person 
who held it, and saw a sturdy, plain man stand- 
ing over him, with his teeth clinched, and liis 
aspect that of one all ready for mischief. 

“ Lay still, naow ! said Abel Stebbins, the 
Doctor’s man ; “ ’f y’ don’t. I’ll stick ye, ’z sure 
*z y’ V alive ! I been aafter ye f’r a week, ’n’ I 
got y’ naow! I knowed I’d ketch ye at some 
darned trick or ’nother ’fore I’d done ’ith ye ! ” 

Dick lay perfectly still, feeling that he was 
crippled and helpless, thinking all the time with 
the Yankee half of his mind what to do about it. 
He saw Mr. Bernard lift his head and look around 
him. He would get his senses again in a few 
minutes, very probably, and then he, Mr. Richard 
Venner would be done for. 

“ Let me up ! let me up 1 ” he cried, in a low 
hurried voice, — “ I’ll give you a hundred dollar 
In gold to let me go. The man a’n’t hurt, — 
don’t you see him stirring ? He’ll come to him- 
eelf in two minutes. Let me up ! I’ll give you 
a hundred and fifty dollars in gold, now, here or 
the spot, — and the watch out of my pocket takf 
It yourself with your own hands ! ” 


ELSIE VENNER. 


457 


“ I’ll see y’ darned fust ! Ketch me lett’n’ go ! ” 
^as Abel’s emphatic answer. “ Yeou lay still, ’n’ 
tv ait t’ll that man comes tew.” 

lie kept the hay-fork ready for action at the 
slightest sign of resistance. 

IVIr. Bernard, in the mean time, had been get- 
ting, first his senses, and then some few of Ilia 
scattered wits, a little together. 

“ What is it ? ” — he said. “ Who’s hurt ? 
What’s happened ? ” 

“ Come along here ’z quick ’z y’ ken,” Abel an- 
swered, “ ’ll’ haiilp me fix this fellah. Y’ been 
hurt, y’rself, ’n’ the’ ’s mm’der come pooty nigh 
happenin’. ” 

Mr. Bernard heard the answer, but presently 
stared about and asked again, “ Whd^s hurt ? 
Whales happened ? ” 

« Y’ ’r’ hurt, y’rself, I tell ye,” said Abel ; “ ’n’ 
the’ ’s been a murder, pooty nigh.” 

Mr. Bernard felt something about his neck, 
and, putting his hands up, found the loop of the 
lasso, which he loosened, but did not think to slip 
over his head, in the confusion of his perceptions 
and thoughts. It was a wonder that it had not 
choked him, but he had fallen forward so as to 
slacken it. 

By this time he was getting some notion of 
what he was about, and presently began looldng 
ound for his pistol, which had fallen. He found 
It lying near him, cocked it mechanically, and 
walked, somewhat unsteadily, towards the two 


458 


ELSIE VENNER. 


men, who were keeping their position as still as 
if they were performing in a tableau, 

“ Quick, naow ! ” said Abel, who had heard the 
click of cocking the pistol, and saw that he held 
it in his hand, as he came towards him. “ Gi’ m 
that pistil, and yeou fetch that ’ere rope layiu 
there. I’ll have this here fellah fixed ’n less ’n 
two minutes.” 

Mr. Bernard did as Abel said, — stupidly and 
mechanically, for he was but half right as yet. 
Abel pointed the pistol at Dick’s head. 

“ Naow hold up y’r hands, yeou fellah,” he 
Sdid, “ ’n’ keep ’em up, while this man puts the 
rope raound y’r wrists.” 

Dick felt himself helpless, and, rather than have 
his disabled arm roughly dealt with, held up his 
hands. Mr. Bernard did as Abel said ; he was in 
a purely passive state, and obeyed orders like a 
child. Abel then secured the rope in a most 
thorough and satisfactory complication of twists 
and knots. 

“ Naow get up, will ye ? ” he said ; and the un- 
fortunate Dick rose to his feet. 

“ Who's hurt ? What's happened ? ” asked poor 
Mr. Bernard again, his memory having been com- 
pletely jarred out of him for the time. 

‘‘ Come, look here naow, yeou, don’ stan’ aiisk- 
Ln’ questions over ’n’ over; — ’t beats all I ha’n’t I 
tol’ y’ a dozen times ? ” 

As Abel spoke, he turned and looked at Mi 
Bernard. 


JLLSLE TENNER. 


459 


“ Hullo ! What ’n thunder’s that ’ere raoun* 
fi neck ? Ketched ye ’ith a slippernoose, hey 1 
Wal, if that a’n’t the craowner I HoP on a min- 
ute, Cap’n, ’n’ I’ll show ye what that ’ere halter’s 
good for.” 

Abel slipped the noose over Mr. Bernard’s head, 
and put it round the neck of the miserable Dick 
Venner, who made no sign of resistance, — wheth- 
er on account of the pain he was in, or from mere 
helplessness, or because he was waiting for some 
unguarded moment to escape, — since resistance 
seemed of no use. 

“ I’m go’ll’ to kerry y’ home,” said Abel ; “ th’ 
ol’ Doctor, he’s got a gre’t cur’osity t’ see ye. Jes’ 
step along naow, — off that way, will ye? — ’n’ 
I’ll hoi’ on t’ th’ bridle, f’ fear y’ sh’d run away.” 

He took hold of the leather thong, but found 
that it was fastened at the other end to the saddle. 
This was too much for Abel. 

“ Wal, naow, yeou he a pooty chap to hev 
raound ! A fellah’s neck in a slippernoose at one 
eend of a halter, ’n’ a boss on th’ full spring at 
t’other eend ! ” 

He looked at him from head to foot as a nat- 
uralist inspects a new specimen. His clothes had 
suffered in his fall, especially on the leg which 
hid been caught und3r the horse. 

Hullo I look o’ there, naow ! What’s that 
fre stickin’ aout o’ y’r boot ? ” 

It w \s nothing but the handle of an ugly knife, 
itfhioh Abel instantly relieved him of. 


460 


ELSIE VENNER. 


The party now took up the line of march foi 
Did Doctor Kittredge’s house, Abel carrying the 
pistol and knife, and Mr. Bernard walking in 
silence, still half-stunned, holding the hay-fork, 
which Abel had thrust into his hand. It was all 
a dream to him as yet. He remembered the 
horseman riding at him, and his firing the pistol; 
but whether he was alive, and these walls around 
him belonged to the village of Rockland, or 
whether he had passed the dark river, and was 
in a suburb of the New Jerusalem, he could not 
as yet have told. 

They were in the street where the Doctor’s 
house was situated. 

“ I guess I’ll fire off one o’ these here berrils,” 
said Abel. 

He fired. 

Presently there was a noise of opening windows, 
and the nocturnal head-dresses of Rockland flow- 
ered out of them like so many developments of 
the Night-blooming Cereus. White cotton caps 
and red bandanna handkerchiefs were the prevail- 
ing forms of efflorescence. The main point was 
that the village was waked up. The old Doctor 
always waked easily, from long habit, and was 
th^ first among those who looked out to see what 
had happened. 

“ Why, Abel ! ” he called out, “ what have you 
got there ? and what’s all this noise about ? ” 

“ We’ve ketched the Portagee ! ” Abel an- 
swered, as laconically as the herd of Lake Erie 


ELSIE VENNER. 


461 


In his famous dispatch. “ Go in there, you fel- 
lah !» 

The prisoner was marched into the house, 
and the Doctor, who had bewitched his clothes 
upon him in a way that would have been mi* 
aculous in anybody but a physician, was down 
in presentable form as soon as if it had been a 
child in a fit that he was sent for. 

“Richard Venner!” the Doctor exclaimed. 
“ What is the meaning of all this ? Mr Lang- 
don, has anything happened to you ? ” 

Mr. Bernard put his hand to his head. 

“ My mind is confused,” he said. “ Pve had 
a fall. — Oh, yes ! — wait a minute and it will 
all come back to me.” 

“ Sit down, sit down,” the doctor said. “ Abel 
will tell me about it. Slight concussion of the 
brain. Can’t remember very well for an hour or 
two, — will come right by to-morrow.” 

“ Been stunded,” Abel said. “ He can’t tell 
nothin’.” 

Abel then proceeded to give a Napoleonic 
bulletin of the recent combat of cavalry and 
infantry and its results, — none slain, one cap- 
tured. 

The Doctor looked at the prisoner through hia 
spectacles. 

“ What’s the matter with your shoulder, Ven- 
aer?” 

Dick answered sullenly, that he didn’t know, — 
fell on it when his horse came 3 own. The Doc- 


i62 


ELSIE VENDER. 


tor examined it as carefully as he could through 
his clothes. 

“ Out of joint. Untie his hands, Abel.’^ 

By this time a small alarm had spread among 
the neighbors, and there was a circle around Dick 
who glared about on the assembled honest people 
like a hawk with a broken wing. 

When the Doctor said, “ Untie his hands,” the 
circle widened perceptibly. 

“ Isn’t it a leetle rash to give him the use of 
his hands ? I see there’s females and children 
standin’ near.” 

This was the remark of our old friend, Dea- 
con Soper, who retired from the front row, as he 
spoke, behind a respectable-looking, but some- 
what hastily dressed person of the defenceless 
sex, the female help of a neighboring household, 
accompanied by a boy, whose unsmoothed shock 
of hair looked like a last-year’s crow’s-nest. 

But Abel untied his hands, in spite of the Dea- 
con’s considerate remonstrance. 

“ Now,” said the Doctor, “ the first thing is to 
put the joint back.” 

“ Stop,” said Deacon Soper, — “ stop a minutOi 
Don’t you think it will be safer — for the women- 
folks — jest to wait till mornin’, afore you put 
that j’int into the socket ? ” 

Colonel Sprowle, who had been called by a 
ipecial messenger, spoke up at this moment. 

“Let the women-folks and the deacons ga 
come, if they’re scared, and put the fellah’s j’in? 


ELSIE TENNER. 


463 


In as quick as you like. FU resk him, jhnt in 
or out.” 

“ I want one of you to go straight down to 
Dudley Venner’s with a message,” the Doctor 
Baid. “ I will have the young man’s shoulder 
in quick enough.” 

“Don’t send that message!” said Dick, in a 
hoarse voice ; — “do what you lik^ with my arm, 
but don’t send that message! Let me go, — I 
can walk, and FU be off from this place. There’s 
nobody hurt but myself. Damn the shoulder! — 
let me go ! You shall never hear of me again ! ” 

Mr. Bernard came forward. 

“ My friends,” he said, “ J am not injured, 
-seriously, at least. Nobody need complain 
against this man, if I don’t. The Doctor will 
treat him like a human being, at any rate ; and 
then, if he will go, let him. There are too many 
witnesses against him here for him to want to 
stay.” 

The Doctor, in the mean time, without saying 
a word to all this, had got a towel round the 
shoulder and chest and another round the arm, 
and had the bone replaced in a very few min- 
utes. 

“ Abel, put Cassia into the new chaise,” he 
»aid, quietly. “ My friends and neighbors, leave 
ihis young man to me.” 

“ Colonel Sprowle, you’re a justice of the 
Deace,” said Deacon Soper, “ and you know 
^rhat the law says in cases liko this. I a’li’t 


164 


ELSIE VENNER 


BO clear that it won’t have to come afore the 
Grand Jury, whether we will or no.” 

“I guess we’ll set that j’int to-morrow morn- 
in’,” said Colonel Sprowle, — which made a 
laugh at the Deacon’s expense, and virtually 
Bettled the question. 

“ Now trust this young man in my care,” oaid 
the old Doctor, “ and go home and finish your 
naps. I knew him when he was a boy and I’ll 
answer for it, he won’t trouble you any more. 
The Dudley blood makes folks proud, I can tel) 
you, whatever else they are.” 

The good people so respected and believed in 
the Doctor that they left the prisoner with him. 

Presently, Cassia, the fast Morgan mare, came 
up to the front-door, with the wheels of the new, 
light chaise flashing behind her in the moonlight. 
The Doctor drove Dick forty miles at a stretch 
that night, out of the limits of the State. 

“ Do you want money ? ” he said, before he 
eft him. 

Dick told him the secret of his golden belt. 

“ Where shall I send your trunk after you 
from your uncle’s ? ” 

Dick gave him a direction to a seaport town 
to which he himself was going, to take passage 
*br a port in South America. 

“ Good-bye, Richard,” said the Doctor. “ Try 
to learn something from to-night’s lesson.” 

The Southern impulses in Dick’s wild blooc 
overcame him, and he kissed the old Doctor or. 


ELSIE 7ENNER. 


465 


both cheeks, crying as only the children of the 
Bun can cry, after the first hours in the dewy 
morning of life. So Dick Venner disappears 
from this story. An hour after dawn. Cassia 
pointed hei hue ears homeward, and struck into 
her square, honest trot, as if she had not been 
doing anything more than her duty during her 
four hours’ stretch of the last night. 

Abel was not in the habit of questioning the 
Doctor’s decisions. 

“ It’s all right,” he said to Mr. Bernard. “ The 
fellah’s Squire Venner’s relation, anyhaow. Don’t 
you want to wait here, jest a little while, till I 
come back ? The’ ’s a consid’able nice saddle ’n’ 
bridle on a dead boss that’s layin’ daown there 
in the road ’n’ I guess the’ a’n’t no use in lettin’ 
on ’em spile, — so I’ll jest step aout ’n’ fetch ’em 
along. I kind o’ calc’late ’t won’t pay to take the 
cretur’s shoes ’n’ hide off to-night, — ’n’ the’ won’t 
be much iron on that boss’s huffs an haour after 
daylight, I’ll bate ye a quarter.” 

“ I’ll walk along with you,” said hlr. Bernard ; 
— “I feel as if I could get along well enough 
now.” 

So they set off together. There was a little 
crowd round the dead mustang already, princi- 
oally consisting of neighbors who had adjourned 
from the Doctor’s house to see the scene of the 
late adventure. Li addition to these, however, 
the assembly was honored oy the presence of Mr, 
Principal Silas Beckham, who had been called 

30 


ELSIE VENNER. 


i66 

from his slumbers by a message that Master 
Langdon was shot tlirough the head by a high* 
way-robber, but had learned a true version of 
the story by this time. His voice was at that 
moment heard above the rest, — sharp, but thin 
like bad cider- vinegar. 

“ I take charge of that property, I say. Master 
Langdon’s actin’ under my orders, and I claim 
that boss and all that’s on him. Hiram I jest slip 
off that saddle and bridle, and carry ’em up to 
the Institoot, and bring down a pair of pinchers 
and a file, — and — stop — fetch a pair of shears, 
too; there’s hoss-hair enough in that mane and 
tail to stuff a bolster with.” 

You let that hoss alone ! ” spoke up Colonel 
Sprowle. “ When a fellah goes out huntin’ and 
shoots a squirrel, do you think he’s go’n’ to let 
another fellah pick him up and kerry him off? 
Not if he’s got a double-berril gun, and t’other 
berril ha’n’t been fired off yet ! I should like to 
see the malm that’ll take off that seddle ’n’ bridle, 
excep’ the one th’t hez a fair right to the whole 
concern ! ” 

Hiram was from one of the lean streaks in New 
Hampshire, and, not being overfed in Mr. Silas 
recliham’s kitchen, was somewhat wanting in 
stamina, as well as in stomach, for so doubtful 
an enterprise as undertaking to carry out his em* 
ployer’s orders in the face of the Colonel’s de» 
fiance. 

Just then Mr. Bernard and Abel came up to 
gether. 


ELSIE VENXER. 


467 


“ Here they be,” said the Colonel. “ Stan’ beck, 
gentlemen ! ” 

Mr. Bernard, who was pale and still a little con- 
fused, but gradually becoming more like himself, 
stood and looked in silence for a moment. 

All his thoughts seemed to be clearing them- 
selves in this interval. He took in the whole 
series of incidents : his own frightful risk ; the 
strange, instinctive, nay. Providential impulse 
which had led him so suddenly to do the one only 
thing which could possibly have saved him ; the 
sudden appearance of the Doctor’s man, but for 
which he might yet have been lost ; and the dis- 
comfiture and capture of his dangerous enemy. 

It was all past now, and a feeling of pity rose 
in Mr. Bernard’s heart. 

“He loved that horse, no doubt,” he said, — 
“ and no wonder. A beautiful, wild-looking crea- 
ture ! Take off those things that are on him, 
Abel, and have them carried to Mr. Dudley Ven- 
ner’s. If he does not want them, you may keep 
them yourself, for all that I have to say. One 
thing more. I hope nobody will lift his hand 
against this noble creature to mutilate him in 
any way. After you have taken off the saddle 
and bridle, Abel, bury him just as he is. Under 
that old beech-tree will be a good place. You’ll 
see to it, — won’t you, Abel ? ” 

Abei nodded assent, and Mr. Bernard returned 
to ^he Institute, threw himself in his clothes on 
the bed, and slept like one who is heavy with 
«dne. 


468 


ELSIE VENNER. 


Following Mr. Bernard's wishes, Abel at once 
took off the high-peaked saddle and the richly orna- 
mented bridle from the mustang. Then, with the 
aid of two or three others, he removed him to the 
place indicated. Spades and shovels were soo 
procured, and before the moon had set, the wila 
horse of the Pampas was at rest under the turf at 
the way-side, in the far village am ong the hills of 
New England. 


ELSIE VENNEB. 


469 


CHAPTER XXVL 

THE NEWS REACHES THE DUDLEY MANSION. 

Early the next morning Abel Stebbins made 
his 'appearance at Dudley Vernier’s, and requested 
to see the maiin o’ the haouse abaout somethin’ 
o’ consequence. Mr. Vernier sent word that the 
messenger should wait below, and presently ap- 
peared in the study, where Abel was making him- 
self at home, as is the wont of the republican cit- 
izen, when he hides the purple of empire beneath 
the apron of domestic service. 

“ Good mornin’. Squire ! ” said Abel, as Mr. 
Venner entered. “ My name’s Stebbins, ’n’ I’m 
stoppiii’ f r a spell ’ith ol’ Doctor Kittredge.” 

“ Well, Stebbins,” said Mr. Dudley Venner, 
‘‘have you brought any special message from 
the Doctor ? ” 

“ Y’ ha’n’t heerd nothin’ abaout it. Squire, d’ 
ye meant’ say?” said Abel, — beginning to sus- 
pect that he was the first to bring the news of last 
evening’s events. 

“ About what?” asked Mr. Venner, with somr 
interest. 

“ Dew tell, naow ! Waal, that beats all I Wh} 


470 


ELSIE VENNER. 


that ’ere Portagee relation o’ yourn ’z been tryin’ 
t’ ketch a fellah ’n a slippernoose, ’n’ got ketched 
himself, — that’s all. Y’ ha’n’t heerd noth’n’ 
abaout it ? ” 

“ Sit down,” said ]VIr. Dudley Venner, calmly 
* and tell me all you have to say.” 

So Abel sat down and gave him an account of 
the events of the last evening. It was a strange 
and terrible surprise to Dudley Venner to find 
that his nephew, who had been an inmate of his 
house and the companion of his daughter, was to 
all intents and purposes guilty of the gravest of 
crimes. But the first shock was no sooner over 
than he began to think what effect the news would 
have on Elsie. He imagined that there was a 
kind of friendly feeling between them, and he 
feared some crisis would be provoked in his 
daughter’s mental condition by the discovery. 
He would wait, however, until she came from 
her chamber, before disturbing her with the evil 
tidings. 

Abel did not forget his message with reference 
to the equipments of the dead mustang. 

“The’ was some things on the boss. Squire, 
that the man he ketched said he didn’ care no 
gre’t abaout ; but perhaps you’d like to have ’em 
fetched to the mansion-haouse. Ef y’ didrC care 
abaout ’em, though, I shouldn’ min’ keepin’ on 
’em ; they might come handy some time oi 
nother : they say, holt on t’ anything for ten yea^ 
there’ll be some kin’ o’ use for ’t.” 


ELSIE VENNER. 


471 


“ Keep everything,” said Dudley Venner. ‘‘ I 
don’t want to see anything belonging to that 
young man.” 

So Abel nodded to Mr. Venner, and left the 
study to find some of the men about the stable 
to tell and talk over with them the events of 
the last evening. He presently came upon El- 
bridge, chief of the equine department, and driver 
of the family-coach. 

“ Good mornin’, Abe,” said Elbridge. “What’s 
fetched y’ daown here so all-fired airly ? ” 

“ You’re a darned pooty lot daown here, you 
be ! ” Abel answered. “ Better keep your JPort- 
agees t’ home nex’ time, ketchin’ folks ’ith slipper- 
nooses raoun’ their necks, ’n’ kerryin’ knives ’n 
their boots ! ” 

“ What ’r’ you jawin’ abaout? ” Elbridge said, 
looking up to see if he was in earnest, and what 
he meant. 

“ Jawin'^ abaout ? You’ll find aout ’z soon ’z 
y’ go into that ’ere stable o’ yourn! Y” won’t 
cmfry that ’ere long-tailed black boss no more ; ’n’ 
y’ won’t set y’r eyes on the fellah that rid him, 
ag’in, in a hurry! ” 

Elbiidge walked straight to the stable, without 
Baying a word, found the door unlocked, and 
went ill. 

“ I'h’ critter’s gone, sure enough ! ” he said. 
“ Glad on ’t ! The darndest, kickin’est, bitin’est 
Deast tk’t ever I see, ’r ever wan’ t’ see ag’in! 
Good reddance! Don’ wan’ no snappin’-turkles 


472 


ELSIE VENNER. 


Ln my stable ! Whar’s the man gone th’t brough 
the critter ? 

“ Whar he ’s gone ? Guess y’ better go ’n 
aiisk my ol’ man; he kerried him off laas’ night* 
’n’ when he comes back, mebbe he’ll tell ye whui 
he’s gone tew ! ’’ 

By this time Elbridge had found out that Abel 
was in earnest, and had something to tell. lie 
looked at the litter in the mustang’s stall, then at 
the crib. 

“ Ha’n’t eat b’t haillf his feed. Ha’n’t been 
daown on his straw. Must ha’ been took aout 
somewhere abaout ten ’r ’leven o’clock. I know 
that ’ere critter’s ways. The fellah’s had him 
aout nights afore ; b’t I never thought nothin’ o’ 
no mischief. He’s a kin’ o’ haiilf Injin. What 
is ’t the chap ’s been a-doin’ on? TeU ’s aU 
abaout it.” 

Abel sat down on a meal-ehest, picked up a 
straw and put it into his mouth. Elbridge sat 
down at the other end, pulled out his jack-knife, 
opened the penknife-blade, and began sticking it 
into the lid of the meal-chest. The Doctor’s man 
aad a story to tell, and he meant to get all the 
enjoyment out of it. So he told it with every 
luxury of circumstance. Mr. Venner’s man heard 
it all with open mouth. No listener in the gar- 
dens of Stamboul could have found more rapture 
in a tale heard amidst the perfume of roses and 
the voices of birds and tinkling of fountains than 
Elbridge in following Abel’s narrative, as theif 


ELSIE TENNER. 


473 


•at tliere in the aromatic ammoniacal atmosphere 
of the stable, the grinding of the horses’ jaws 
keeping evenly on through it all, with now and 
then the interruption of a stamping hoof, and at 
intervals a ringing crow from the barn -yard. 

Elbridge stopped a minute to think, after Ab 
had finished. 

“ Who’s took care o’ them things that was on 
the boss ? ” he said, gravely. 

“ Waiil, Langden, he seemed to kin’ o’ think 
I’d ought to have ’em, — ’n’ the Squire, he didn’ 
seem to have no ’bjection ; ’n’ so, — waiil, I cal- 
c’late I sh’ll jes’ holt on to ’em myself; they a’n’t 
good f’r much, but they’re cur’ous t’ keep t’ look 
at.” 

Mr. Vernier’s man did not appear much grat- 
ified by this arrangement, especially as he had a 
shrewd suspicion that some of the ornaments of 
the bridle were of precious metal, having made 
occasional examinations of them with the edge 
of a file. But he did not see exactly what to do 
about it, except to get them from Abel in the 
way of bargain. 

“ Waiil, no, — they a^nH good for much ’xcep’ 
to look at. ’F y’ ever rid on that seddle once, 
y’ wouldn’ try it ag’in, very spry, — not ’f y’ c’d 
haiilp y’rsaalf. J tried it, — darned ’f I sot daown 
f’r th’ nex’ week, — eat all my victuals stan’in’ 
I sh’d like t’ hev them things wal enough to heiig 
up ’ll the stable ; ’f y’ want t’ trade some day 
fetch ’em along daown.” 


474 


ELSIE VENNEE. 

Abel rather expected that Elbridge would have 
.aid claim to the saddle and bridle on the strength 
of some promise or other presumptive title, and 
thought himself lucky to get off with only offer' 
ing to think abaout tradin’. 

When Elbridge returned to the house, he found 
the family in a state of great excitement. Mr. 
Venner had told Old Sophy, and she had in- 
formed the other servants. Everybody knew 
what had happened, excepting Elsie. Her father 
had charged them all to say nothing about it to 
her ; he would tell her, when she came down. 

He heard her step at last, — a light, gliding 
step, — so light that her coming was often un- 
heard, except by those who perceived the faint 
rustle that went with it. She was paler than 
common this morning, as she came into her fa- 
ther’s study. 

After a few words of salutation, he said qui- 
etly,— 

“ Elsie, my dear, your cousin Richard has left 
us.” 

She grew still paler, as she asked, — 

“ Is he dead ? ” 

Dudley Venner started to see the expression 
with which Elsie put this question. 

‘‘ He is living, — but dead to us from this day 
forward,” said her father. 

He proceeded to tell her, in a general way, tha 
story he had just heard from Abel. There could 
oe no doubting it; — he remembered him as tht 


ELSIE VENNER. 


475 


Doctor’s roan; and as Abel had seen all with hh 
own eyes, — as Dick’s chamber, when unlocked 
with a spare key, was found empty, and his bed 
had not been slept in, he accepted the whole ac- 
count as true. 

When he told of Dick’s attempt on the young 
school-master, (“ You know Mr. Langdon very 
well, Elsie, — a perfectly inoffensive young man, 
as I understand,”) Elsie turned her face away 
and slid along by the wall to the window which 
looked out on the little grass-plot with the white 
stone standing in it. Her father could not see 
her face, but he knew by her movements that her 
dangerous mood was on her. When she heard 
the sequel of the story, the discomfiture and cap- 
ture of Dick, she turned round for an instant, 
with a look of contempt and of something like 
triumph upon her face. Her father saw that her 
cousin had become odious to her. He knew well, 
by every change of her countenance, by her move- 
ments, by every varying curve of her graceful fig- 
ure, the transitions from passion to repose, from 
fierce excitement to the dull languor which often 
succeeded her threatening paroxysms. 

She remained looking out at the window. A 
group of white fan-tailed pigeons had lighted on 
the green plot before it and clustered about one 
of their companions who lay on his back, flutter- 
ing in a strange way, with outspread wings and 
twitching feet. Elsie utf red a fain* r y ; these 
were her special favor/'^ ss and often Vom her 


i76 


ELSIE VENNEB. 


hand. She threw open the long window, sprang 
out, caught up the white fan-tail, and held it to 
her bosom. The bird stretched himself out, and 
then lay still, with open eyes, lifeless. She looked 
at him a moment, and, sliding in through the 
open window and through the study, sought her 
own apartment, where she locked herself in, and 
began to sob and moan like those that weep. 
But the gracious solace of tears seemed to be 
denied her, and her grief, like her anger, was a 
dull ache, longing, like that, to finish itself with 
a fierce paroxysm, but wanting its natural outlet. 

This seemingly trifling incident of the death 
of her favorite appeared to change all the current 
of her thought. Whether it were the sight of the 
dying bird, or the thought that her own agency 
might have been concerned in it, or some deeper 
grief, which took this occasion to declare itself, 
— some dark remorse or hopeless longing, — 
whatever it might be, there was an unwonted 
tumult in her soul. To whom should she go in 
her vague misery ? Only to Him who knows all 
His creatures’ sorrows, and listens to the faintest 
human cry. She knelt, as she had been taught 
fco kneel from her childhood, and tried to pray. 
But her thoughts refused to flow in the language 
of supplication. She could not plead for herself 
as other women plead in their hours of anguish, 
She rose like one who should stoop to drink, anc, 
find dust in the place of water. Partly from rest* 
essness, partly from an attraction she hardly 


ELSIE VENNER. 


477 


Rvowed to herself, she followed her usual habit 
and strolled listlessly along to the school. 

Of course everybody at the Institute was fuD 
of the terrible adventure of the preceding even- 
ing. Mr. Bernard felt poorly enough ; but he 
had made it a point to show himself the next 
morning, as if nothing had happened. Helen 
Daney knew nothing of it all until she had risen, 
when the gossipy matron of the establishment 
made her acquainted with aU its details, embel- 
lished with such additional ornamental append- 
ages as it had caught up in transmission from lip 
to lip. She did not love to betray her sensibili- 
ties, but she was pale and tremulous and very 
nearly tearful when Mr. Bernard entered the sit- 
ting-room, showing on his features traces of the 
violent shock he had received and the heavy 
slumber from which he had risen with throbbing 
brows. What the poor girl’s impulse was, on 
seeing him, we need not inquire too curiously. 
If he had been her own brother, she would have 
kissed him and cried on his neck ; but something 
held her back. There is no galvanism in kiss- 
youi-brother ; it is copper against copper: but 
alien bloods develop strange currents, when they 
dow close to each other, with only the films that 
cover lip and cheek tetweeu them. Mr. Bernard, 
as some of us may remember, violated the proprie- 
ties and laid himself open to reproach by his en- 
terprise with a bouncing village-girl, to whose 


478 


ELSIE VENDER. 


rosy cheek an honest smack was not probably an 
absolute novelty. He made it all up by his dis- 
cretion and good behavior now. He saw by 
Helen’s moist eye and trembling lip that hei 
woman’s heart was off its guard, and he knew, 
by the infallible instinct of sex, that he should be 
forgiven, if he thanked her for her sisterly sympa- 
thies in the most natural way, — expressive, t.nd 
at ths same time economical of breath and utter- 
ance. He would not give a false look to their 
friendship by any such demonstration. Helen 
was a little older than himself, but the aureole 
of young womanhood had not yet begun to fade 
from around her. She was surrounded by that 
enchanted atmosphere into which the girl walks 
with dreamy eyes, and out of which the woman 
passes with a story written on her forehead. 
Some people think very little of these refine- 
ments ; they have not studied magnetism and the 
law of the square of the distance. 

So Mr. Bernard thanked Helen for her interest 
without the aid of the twenty-seventh letter of the 
alphabet, — the love labial, — the limping conso- 
nant which it takes two to speak plain. Indeed 
be scarcely let her say a word, at first ; for he 
caw that it was hard for her to conceal her emo- 
tion. No wonder ; he had come within a hair’s- 
breadth of losing his life, and he had been a very 
kind friend and a very dear companion to her. 

There were some curious spiritual experiencei 
connected with his last evening’s advcntnro 


ELSIE VENNER. 


479 


which were working very strongly in his mind» 
It was borne in upon him irresistibly that he 
had been dead since he had seen Helen, — as 
dead as the son of the Widow of Nain before 
the bier was touched and he sat up and began 
to speak. There was an interval between twe 
conscious moments which appeared to him like 
a temporary annihilation, and the thoughts it 
suggested were worrying him with strange per- 
plexities. 

He remembered seeing the dark figure on 
horseback rise in the saddle and something 
leap from its hand. He remembered the thrill 
he felt as the coil settled on his shoulders, and 
the sudden impulse which led him to fire as he 
did. With the report of the pistol all became 
blank, until he found himself in a strange, be- 
v/ildered state, groping about for the weapon, 
which he had a vague consciousness of having 
dropped. But, according to Abel’s account, there 
.fiust have been an interval of some minutes be- 
tween these recollections, and he could not help 
asking. Where was the mind, the soul, the think- 
ing principle, all this time ? 

A man is stunned by a blow with a stick on 
tne head. He becomes unconscious. Another 
man gets a harder blow on the head from a 
bigger stick, and it kills him. Does he become 
unconscious, too ? If so, when docs he come to 
his consciousness? The man who has had a 
slight or moderate blow comes to himself wficn 


i80 


ELSIE VENNER. 


the immediate shock passes off and the organs 
begin to work again, or when a bit of the skull 
is pried up, if that happens to be broken. Sup- 
pose the blow is hard enough to spoil the brain 
and stop the play of the organs, what happens 
then ? 

A British captain was struck by a cannon-ball 
on the head, just as he was giving an order, at 
\he Battle of the Nile. Fifteen months after- 
Rrards he was trephined at Greenwich Hospital, 
laving been insensible all that time. Immedi- 
ately after the operation his consciousness re- 
turned, and he at once began carrying out the 
order he was giving when the shot struck him. 
Suppose he had never been trephined, when 
would his consciousness have returned? When 
his breath ceased and his heart stopped beat- 
ing? 

When Mr. Bernard said to Helen, I have 
been dead since I saw you,’’ it startled her not 
a little ; for his expression was that of perfect 
good faith, and she feared that his mind was 
disordered. When he explained, not as has been 
done just now, at length, but in a hurried, imper- 
fect way, the meaning of his strange assertion, 
and the fearful Sadduceeisms which it had sug- 
gested to his mind, she looked troubled at first, 
and then thoughtful. She did not feel able to 
answer all the difficulties he raised, but she met 
them with that faith which is the strength as wel 
as the weakness of women, — which makes then 


ELSIE VENNEB. 


483 


iveak ill the hands of man, but strong in the pres- 
Bnce of the Unseen. 

It is a strange experience,” she said ; but I 
once had something like it. I fainted, and lost 
some five or ten minutes out of my life, as much 
as if I had been dead. But when I came to my- 
self, I was the same person every way, in my 
recollections and character. So I suppose that 
loss of consciousness is not death. And if I 
was born out of unconsciousness into infancy 
with many /amiVy-traits of mind and body, I 
can believe, from my own reason, even without 
help from Revelation, that I shall be born again 
out of the unconsciousness of death with my 
individual traits of mind and body. If death 
is, as it should seem to be, a loss of conscious- 
ness, that docs not shake my faith ; for I have 
been put into a body once already to fit me for 
living here, and I hope to be in some way fitted 
after this life to enjoy a better one. But it is all 
trust in God and in his Word. These are enough 
for me ; I hope they are for you.” 

Helen was a minister’s daughter, and familiar 
fiom her childhood with this class of questions, 
especially with all the doubts and perplexities 
which are sure to assail every thinking child 
bred in any inorganic or not thoroughly vital- 
ized faith, — as is too often the case with the 
children of professional theologians. The kind of 
discipline they are subjected to is like that of the 
Flat-Head Indian pappooses. At five or ten oi 

31 


€82 


ELSIE VENNER. 


fifteen years old they put their hands up to theii 
foreheads and ask, What are they strapping 
down my brains in this way for ? So they teal 
off the sacred bandages of the great Flat-Heaa 
tribe, and there follows a mighty rush of blood 
to the long-compressed region. This accounts, 
in the most lucid manner, for those sudden freaks 
with which certain children of this class astonish 
their worthy parents at the period of life when 
they are growing fast, and, the frontal pressure 
beginning to be felt as something intolerable, 
they tear off the holy compresses. 

The hour for school came, and they went to 
the great hall for study. It would not have oc- 
curred to Mr. Silas Peckham to ask his assistant 
whether he felt well enough to attend to his 
duties ; and Mr. Bernard chose to be at his 
post. A little headache and confusion were aU 
that remained of his symptoms. 

Later, in the course of the forenoon, Elsie 
Venncr came and took her place. The girls all 
stared at her, — naturally enough; for it was 
hardly to have been expected that she would 
show herself, after such an event in the house- 
hold to which she belonged. Her expression 
was somewhat peculiar, and, of course, was 
attributed to the shock her feelings had under- 
gone on hearing of the crime attempted by her 
cousin and daily companion. When she wag 
looking on her book, or on any indifferent ob* 
iect, her countenance betrayed some inward dis 


ELSIE VENNER. 


483 


turbance, which knitted her dark brows, and 
seemed to throw a deeper shadow over her 
features. But, from time to time, she would 
lift her eyes toward Mr. Bernard, and let them 
rest upon him, without a thought, seemingly, 
that she herself was the subject of observation 
or remark. Then they seemed to lose their cold 
glitter, and soften into a strange, dreamy tender- 
ness. The deep instincts of womanhood were 
striving to grope their way to the surface of her 
being through all the alien influences which 
overlaid them. She could be secret and cun- 
ning in working out any of her dangerous im- 
pulses, but she did not know how to mask the 
unwonted feeling which fixed her eyes and her 
thoughts upon the only person who had ever 
reached the spring of her hidden sympathies. 

The girls all looked at Elsie, whenever they 
could steal a glance unperceived, and many of 
them were struck with this singular expression 
ler features wore. They had long whispered it 
around among each other that she had a liking 
for the master ; but there were too many of them 
of whom something like this could be said, to 
^ake it very remarkable. Now, however, when 
BO many little hearts were fluttering at the thought 
of the peril through which the handsome young 
inaster had so recently passed, they were more 
alive than ever to the supposed relation between 
nim and the dark school-girl. Some had sup- 
posed there was a mutual attachment between 


A84 


KLSIG VENNER. 


them ; there was a story that they were secretly 
betrothed, in accordance with the rumor which 
had been current in the village. At any rate, 
some conflict was going on in that still, remote, 
clouded soul, and all the girls who looked upon hei 
face were impressed and awed as they had never 
been before by the shadows that passed over it. 

One of these girls was more strongly arrested 
by Elsie’s look than the others. This was a deli- 
cate, pallid creature, with a high forehead, and 
wide-open pupils, which looked as if they could 
take in all the shapes that flit in what, to com- 
mon eyes, is darkness, — a girl said to be clair^ 
voijant under certain influences. In the recess^ as 
it was called, or interval of suspended studies in 
the middle of the forenoon, this girl carried her 
autograph-book, — for she had one of those indis- 
pensable appendages of the boarding-school miss 
of every degree, — and asked Elsie to write her 
name in it. She had an irresistible feeling, that, 
sooner or later, and perhaps very soon, there 
would attach an unusual interest to this auto- 
graph. Elsie took the pen and wrote, in her sharp 
Italian hand, 

Elsie Venner, Infelix, 

It was a remembrance, doubtless, of the forlorn 
^jueen of the “^neid”; but its coming to her 
thought in this way confirmed the sensitive 
Bchool-girl in her fears for Elsie, and she let fa) 
a tear upon the page before she closed it. 


ELSIE VENNER 


485 


Of course, tne keen and practised observation 
of Helen Darley could not fail to notice the change 
of Elsie’s manner and expression. She had long 
seen that she was attracted to the young master* 
and had thought, as the old Doctor did, that any 
impression which acted upon her affections might 
be the means of awakening a new life in her sin- 
gularly isolated nature. Now, however, the con- 
centration of the poor girl’s thoughts upon the 
one object which had had power to reach her 
deeper sensibilities was so painfully revealed in 
her features, that Helen began to fear once more, 
lest Mr. Bernard, in escaping the treacherous vio- 
lence of an assassin, had been left to the equally 
dangerous consequences of a violent, engrossing 
passion in the breast of a young creature whose 
love it would be ruin to admit and might be dead- 
ly to reject. She knew her own heart too well to 
fear that any jealousy might mingle with her new 
apprehensions. It was understood between Ber- 
nard and Helen that they were too good friends 
l;o tamper with the silences and edging proxim- 
ities of love-making. She knew, too, the simply 
human, not masculine, interest which Mr. Ber- 
nard took in Elsie ; he had been frank with Helen, 
and more than satisfied her that with all the pity 
and sympathy which overflowed his soul, when 
lie thought of the stricken girl, there mingled not 
one drop of such love as a youth may feel for a 
aiaiden. 

Ji may help the reader to gain some under 


186 


ELSIE VENNER. 


standing of the anomalous nature of Elsie Ven* 
ner, if we look with Helen into IMr. Bernard’s 
opinions and feelings with reference to her, as 
they had shaped themselves in his consciousness 
at the period of which we are speaking. 

At first he had been impressed by her wii.d 
beauty, and the contrast of all her looks and ways 
with those of the girls around her. Presently a 
sense of some ill-defined personal element, which 
half attracted and half repelled those who looked 
upon her, and especially those on whom she 
looked, began to make itself obvious to him, as 
he soon found it was painfully sensible to his 
more susceptible companion, the lady-teacher. 
It was not merely in the cold light of her dia- 
mond eyes, but in all her movements, in her 
graceful postures as she sat, in her costume, and, 
be sometimes thought, even in her speech, that 
this obscure and exceptional character betrayed 
itself. When Helen had said, that, if they were 
living in times when human beings were subject 
to possession^ she should have thought there was 
something not human about Elsie, it struck an 
unsuspected vein of thought in his own mind, 
which he hated to put in words, but which was 
continually trying to articulate itself among the 
dumb thoughts which lie under the perpetual 
stream of mental whispers. 

Mr. Bernard’s professional training had made 
him slow to accept marvellous stories and man} 
fcrms of superstition. Yet, as a man of science 


ELSIE VENNER. 


487 


he well knew that just on the verge of the demon* 
Btrable facts of physics and physiology there is a 
nebulous border-land which what is called “ com- 
mon sense ’’ perhaps does wisely not to enter, but 
which uncommon sense, or the fine apprehension 
ot privileged intelligences, may cautiously ex- 
plore, and in so doing find itself behind the scenes 
which make up for the gazing world the show 
which is called Nature. 

It was with something of this finer perception, 
perhaps with some degree of imaginative exalta- 
tion, that he set himself to solving the problem 
of Elsie’s influence to attract and repel those 
around her. His letter already submitted to the 
reader hints in what direction his thoughts were 
disposed to turn. Here was a magnificent organ- 
ization, superb in vigorous womanhood, with a 
beauty such as never comes but after generations 
of culture ; yet through all this rich nature there 
ran some alien current of influence, sinuous and 
dark, as when a clouded streak seams the white 
marble of a perfect statue. 

It would be needless to repeat the particular 
suggestions which had come into his mind, as 
they must probably have come into that of the 
reader w:ho has noted the singularities of Elsie’s 
tastes and personal traits. The images which 
certain poets had dreamed of seemed to have 
become a reality before nis own eyes. Then 
rame that unexplained adventure of The iVIoun- 
laiii, — almost like a dream in recollection, vef 


i88 


ELSIE VENNER. 


assuredly real in some of its main incidents,— 
with all that it revealed or hinted. This girl did 
not fear to visit the dreaded region, where danger 
lurked in every nook and beneath every tuft of 
leaves. Did the tenants of the fatal ledge recog 
nize some mysterious affinity which made them 
tributary to the cold glitter of her diamond eyes! 
Was she from her birth one of those frightful 
children, such as he had read about, and the 
Professor had told him of, who form unnatural 
friendships with cold, writhing ophidians ? There 
was no need of so unwelcome a thought as this; 
she had drawn him away from the dark opening 
in the rock at the moment when he seemed to be 
threatened by one of its malignant denizens ; that 
was all he could be sure of ; the counter-fascina- 
tion might have been a dream, a fancy, a coinci- 
dence. All wonderful things soon grow doubtful 
in our own minds, as do even common events, if 
great interests prove suddenly to attach to their 
truth or falsehood. 

I, who am telling of these occurrences, 

saw a friend in the great city, on the morning of 
a most memorable disaster, hours after the time 
when the train which earned its victims to their 
doom had left. I talked with him, and was for 
some minutes, at least, in his company. When 
I reached home, I found that the story had gone 
oefore that he was among the lost, and I alone 
tould contradict it to his weeping friends and re. 
t ives. I did contradict it; but, alas! I bega® 


ELSIE VENNEK. 


489 


soon to doubt myself, penetrated by the eontagioji 
of their solicitude ; my recollection began to ques- 
tion itself ; the order of events became dislocated ; 
and when I heard that he had reached home in 
safety, the relief was almost as great to me as to 
those who had expected to see their own brother’s 
face no more. 

Mr. Bernard was disposed, then, not to accept 
the thought of any odious personal relationship 
of the kind which had suggested itself to him 
when he wrote the letter referred to. That the 
girl had something of the feral nature, her wild, 
lawless rambles in forbidden and blasted regions 
of The Mountain at all hours, her familiarity with 
the lonely haunts where any other human foot 
was so rarely seen, proved clearly enough. But 
the more he thought of aU her strange instincts 
and modes of being, the more he became con* 
vinced that whatever alien impulse swayed her 
will and modulated or diverted or displaced her 
affections came from some impression that reached 
far back into the past, before the days when the 
faithful Old Sophy had rocked her in the cradle. 
He believed that she had brought her ruling 
tendency, whatever it was, into the world with 
her. 

When the school was over and the girls had aU 
gone, Helen lingered in the school-room to sp^^ak 
with Mr. Bernard. 

“ Did you remark Elsie’s ways this forenoor ? 
she said. 


too ELSIE VENNER- 

No, not particularly ; I have not noticed any 
ihing as sharply as I commonly do ; my head haa 
been a little queer, and I have been thinking over 
what we were talking about, and how near I 
came to solving the great problem which every 
day makes clear to such multitudes of people 
What about Elsie?” 

‘‘ Bernard, her liking for you is growing into a 
passion. I have studied girls for a long while, 
and I know the difference between their passing 
fancies and their real emotions. I told you, you 
remember, that Rosa would have to leave us ; we 
barely missed a scene, I think, if not a whole 
tragedy, by her going at the right moment. But 
Elsie is infinitely more dangerous to herself and 
others. Women’s love is fierce enough, if it once 
gets the mastery of them, always ; but this pool 
girl does not know what to do with a passion.” 

Mr. Bernard had never told Helen the story of 
the flower in his Virgil, or that other adventure 
which he would have felt awkwardly to refer to , 
but it had been perfectly understood between 
them that Elsie showed in her own singular 
way a well-marked partiality for the young 
master. 

“ Why don’t they take her away from the 
ichool, if she is in such a strange, excitable 
state ? ’* said IVIr. Bernard. 

“ I believe they are afraid of her,” Helen an- 
swered. “ It is just one of those cases that are 
ten thousand thousand times worse than insanity 


LLSIS VENNEB. 


491 


I don’t think, from what I hear, that her father 
has ever given up hoping that she will outgrow 
her peculiarities. Oh, these peculiar children for 
whom parents go on hoping every morning and 
despairing every night ! If I could tell you half 
that mothers have told me, you would feel that 
the worst of all diseases of the moral sense and 
the will are those which all the Bedlams turn 
away from their doors as not being cases of 
insanity ! ” 

“ Do you think her father has treated her judi- 
ciously ? ” said Mr. Bernard. 

“ I think,” said Helen, with a little hesitation, 
which hlr. Bernard did not happen to notice, — 
“ I think he has been very kind and indulgent, 
and I do not know that he could have treated her 
otherwise with a better chance of success.” 

“ He must of course be fond of her,” Mr. Ber- 
nard said ; ‘ there is nothing else in the world for 
him to love.” 

Helen dropped a book she held in her hand, 
and, stooping to pick it up, the blood rushed into 
her cheeks. 

“ It is getting late,” she said ; “ you must not 
stay any longer in this close school-room. Pray, 
go and get a little fresh air before dinner-time.” 


m 


ELSIE VENSTEP. 


CHAPTER XXVIL 

A SOUL IN DISTRESS. 

The events told in the last two chapters had 
taken place toward the close of the week. On 
Saturday evening the Reverend Chauncy Fair- 
weather received a note which •was left at his 
door by an unknown person who departed with- 
out saying a word. Its words were these : — 

“ One who is in distress of mind requests the 
prayers of this congregation that God would be 
pleased to look in mercy upon the soul that he 
has afflicted.” 

There was nothing to show from whom the 
note came, or the sex or age or special source of 
spiritual discomfort or anxiety of the ^\^:iter. The 
handwriting was delicate and might well be a 
woman’s. The clergyman was not aware of any 
particular affliction among his parishioners which 
was likely to be made the subject of a request of 
this kind. Surely neither of the Venners would 
advertise the attempted crime of their relative is 
tliis way. But who else was there ? The more 
he thought about it, the more it puzzled him 
and as he did not like to pray in the dark, with- 


ELSIE VENNER. 


493 


*mt knowing for whom he was praying, he could 
think of nothing better than to step into old 
Doctor ICittredge’s and see what he had to say 
about it. 

The old Doctor was sitting alone in his study 
when the Reverend Mr. Fairweather was ushered 
m. He received his visitor very pleasantly, ex- 
pecting, as a matter of course, that he would be- 
gin with some new grievance, dyspeptic, neural- 
gic, bronchitic, or other. The minister, however, 
began with questioning the old Doctor about the 
sequel of the other night’s adventure ; for he waa 
akeady getting a little Jesuitical, and kept back 
the object of his visit until it should come up as 
if accidentally in the course of conversation. 

“ It was a pretty bold thing to go off alone 
with that reprobate, as you did,” said the min- 
ister. 

“ I don’t know what there was bold about it,” 
ihe Doctor answered. “ All he wanted was to 
get away. He was not quite a reprobate, you 
see; he didn’t like the thought of disgracing hia 
family or facing his uncle. I think he waa 
ashamed to see his cousin, too, after what ha 
i ad done.” 

“ Did he talk with you on the way ? ” 

“ Not much. For half an hour or so he didn’t 
speak a word. Then he asked where I was driv- 
ing him. I told him, and ne seemed to be sur- 
prised into a sort of grateful feeling. Bad enough 
ao doubt, — but might be worse. Has some hu- 


494 


ELSIE VENNER. 


manity left in him yet. Let him go. God can 
judge him, — I can’t.” 

“ You are too charitable, Doctor,” the minister 
said. “ I condemn him just as if he had carried 
out his project, which, they say, was to make it 
appear as if the school-master had committed 
suicide. That’s what people think the rope 
found by him was for. He has saved his neck, 
— but his soul is a lost one, I am afraid, beyond 
question.” 

“ I can’t judge men’s souls,” the Doctor said. 

I can judge their acts, and hold them respon- 
sible for those, — but I don’t know much about 
their souls. If you or I had found our soul in a 
half-breed body, and been turned loose to run 
among the Indians, we might have been playing 
just such tricks as this fellow has been trying. 
What if you or I had inherited aU the tendencies 
that were born with his cousin Elsie ? ” 

“ Oh, that reminds me,” — the minister said, in 
a sudden way, — “I have received a note, which 
I am requested to read from the pulpit to-morrow. 
I wish you would just have the kindness to look 
at it and see where you think it came from.” 

The Doctor examined it carefully. It was a 
Woman’s or girl’s note, he thought. Might come 
from one of the school-girls who was anxious 
about her spiritual condition. Handwriting was 
disguised : looked a little like Elsie Venner’s, but 
aot characteristic enough to make it certain. If 
Would be a new thing, if she had asked public 


ELSIE VExHNER. 


495 


prayers for herself, and a very favorable indication 
of a change in her singular moral nature. It was 
just possible Elsie might have sent that note. 
Nobody could foretell her actions. It would be 
well to see the girl and find out whether any un- 
usual impression had been produced on her mind 
by the recent occurrence or by any other cause. 

The Reverend Mr. Fairweather folded the nott 
and put it into his pocket. 

“ I have been a good deal exercised in mind 
lately, myself,’^ he said. 

The old Doctor looked at him through his spec- 
tacles, and said, in his usual professional tone, — 
Put out your tongue.’’ 

The minister obeyed him in that feeble way 
common with persons of weak character, — for 
people differ as much in their mode of performing 
^his trifling act as Gideon’s soldiers in their way 
of drinking at the brook. The Doctor took his 
hand and placed a finger mechanically on his 
wrist. 

“ It is more spiritual, I think, than bodily,” said 
the Reverend Mr. Fairweather. 

“ Is your appetite as good as usual ? ” the Doc- 
tor asked. 

“ Pretty good,” the minister answered ; “ but my 
sleep, my sleep. Doctor, — I am greatly troubled 
night with lying awake and thinking of my 
future, — I am not at ease in mind.’ 

He looked round at all the doors, to be sure they 
were shut, and moved his chair up close to tha 
Doctor’s 


496 


ELSIE VENNER. 


“ You do not know the mental trials I have 
been going through for the last few months.” 

“ I think I do,” the old Doctor said. “ You 
want to get out of the new church into the old 
one, don’t you ? ” 

The minister blushed deeply ; he thought he 
had been going on in a very quiet way, and that 
nobody suspected his secret. As the old Doctor 
was his counsellor in sickness, and almost every- 
body’s confidant in trouble, he had intended to 
impart cautiously to him some hints of the change 
of sentiments through which he had been passing. 
He was too late with his information, it appeared, 
and there was nothing to be done but to throw 
himself on the Doctor’s good sense and kindness, 
which everybody knew, and get what hints he 
could from him as to the practical course he 
should pursue. He began, after an awkward 
pause, — 

“ You would not have me stay in a commun- 
ion which I feel to be alien to the true church, 
would you ? ” 

“ Have you stay, my friend ? ” said the Doctor, 
with a pleasant, friendly look, — “ have you stay ? 
Not a month, nor a week, nor a day, if 1 could 
help it. You have got into the WTong pulpit, and 
. I have known it from the first. The sooner you 
go where you belong, the better. And I’m very 
glad you don’t mean to stop half-way. Don’t 
vou know you’ve always come to me when you’ve 
been <lyspeptic or sick anyhow, and wanted to 


ELSIE VENNER. 


497 


put yourself wholly into my hands, so that I 
might order you like a child just what to do and 
what to take ? That’s exactly what you want in 
religion. I don’t blame you for it. You never 
liked to take the responsibility of your own body; 
I don’t see why you should want to have the 
charge of your own soul. But I’m glad you’re 
going to the Old Mother of all. You wouldn’t 
have been contented short of that.” 

The Reverend Mr. Fairweather breathed with 
more freedom. The Doctor saw into his soul 
through those awful spectacles of his, — into it 
and beyond it, as one sees through a thin fog. 
But it was with a real human kindness, after all. 
He felt like a child before a strong man ; but the 
strong man looked on him with a father’s indul- 
gence. Many and many a time, when he had 
come desponding and bemoaning himself on ac- 
count of some contemptible bodily infirmity, the 
old Doctor had looked at him through his specta- 
cles, listened patiently while he told his ailments, 
and then, in his large parental way, given him a 
few words of wholesome advice, and cheered him 
up so that he went off with a light heart, Ihinking 
that the heaven he was so much afraid of was 
not so very near, after all. It was the same thing 
now. He felt, as feeble natures always do in the 
presence of strong ones, overmastered, circum- 
scribed, shut in, humbled ; but yet it seemed as if 
die old Doctor did not despise him any more for 
51'hat he considered weakness of rrind than ho 


32 


498 


ELSIE VENI^ER. 


ased to despise him when he complained of hi 
nerves or his digestion. 

IMen who see into their neighbors are very apt 
io be contemptuous ; but men who see throv^h 
them find something lying behind every human 
soul which it is not for them to sit in judgment 
on, or to attempt to sneer out of the order of 
God’s manifold universe. 

Little as the Doctor had said out of which com- 
fort could be extracted, his genial manner had 
something grateful in it. A film of gratitude 
came over the poor man’s cloudy, uncertain eye, 
and a look of tremulous relief and satisfaction 
played about his weak mouth. He was gravitat- 
ing to the majority, where he hoped to find 
“ rest ” ; but he was dreadfully sensitive to the 
opinions of the minority he was on the point of 
leaving. 

The old Doctor saw plainly enough what was 
going on in his mind. 

“ I sha’n’t quarrel with you,” he said, — “ you 
know that very well ; but you mustn’t quarrel 
with me, if I talk honestly with you ; it isn’t 
e^rerybody that will take the trouble. You flatter 
yourself that you will make a good many ene- 
mies by leaving your old communion. Not so 
many as you think. This is the way the common 
sort of people will talk: — ‘'You have got youi 
ticket to the feast of life, as much as any other 
man that ever lived. Protestantism says, — “ Help 
yourself ; here’s a clean plate, and a knife ana 


ELSIE VENNER 


499 


iork of youi own, and plenty of fresh dishes to 
choose from.” The Old Mother says, — “Give 
me your ticket, my dear, and Pll feed you with 
my gold spoon off these beautiful old wooden 
trenchers. Such nice bits as those good old 
gentlemen have left for you ! ” There is no 
quarrelling with a man who prefers broken vict- 
uals,’ That’s what the rougher sort will say ; 
and then, where one scolds, ten will laugh. But, 
mind you, I don’t either scold or laugh. I don’t 
feel sure that you could very well have helped 
doing what you will soon do. You know you 
were never easy without some medicine to take 
when you felt ill in body. I’m afraid I’ve given 
you trashy stuff sometimes, just to keep you quiet 
Now, let me teU you, there is just the same dif- 
ference in spiritual patients that there is in bodily 
ones. One set believes in wholesome ways of 
living, and another must have a great list of spe- 
cifics for all the soul’s complaints. You belong 
vv Uh the last, and got accidentally shuflled in with 
the others.” 

The minister smiled faintly, but did not reply. 
Of course, he considered that way of talking as 
the result of the Doctor’s professional training. 
It would not have been worth while to take 
offence at his plain speech, if he had been so dia* 
posed ; for he might wish to consult him the next 
day as to “what he should take’* for his dyspep- 
sia or his neuralgia. 

He left the Doctor with a hollow feeling at the 


500 


ELSIE VENNER. 


bottom of his soul, as if a good piece of his man- 
hood had been scooped out of him. His hollow 
aching did not explain itself in words, but it 
grumbled and worried down among the an 
shaped thoughts which lie beneath them. H . 
knew that he had been trying to reason himself 
out of his birthright of reason. He knew that 
the inspiration which gave him understanding 
was losing its throne in his intelligence, and th:'. 
almighty Majority- Vote was proclaiming itself in 
its stead. He knew that the great primal truths, 
which each successive revelation only confirmed, 
were fast becoming hidden beneath the mechan- 
ical forms of thought, which, as with aU new con- 
verts, engrossed so large a share of his attention. 
The “ peace,” the “ rest,” which he had purchased, 
were dearly bought to one who had been trained 
to the arms of thought, and whose noble privilege 
it might have been to live in perpetual warfare for 
the advancing truth which the next generation 
will claim as the legacy of the present. 

The Keverend Mr. Fair weather was getting 
careless about his sermons. He must wait the 
fitting moment to declare himself; and in th 
mean time he was preaching to heretics. It di 
not matter much what he preached, under such 
circumstances. Ho pulled out two old yellow 
sermons from a heap of such, and began looking 
ovei that for the forenoon. Naturally enough 
he fell asleep over it, and, sleeping, he began t# 
iream. 


ELSIE VENNER. 


501 


He dreamed that he was under the high arches 
of an old cathedral, amidst a throng of worship- 
pers. The light streamed in through vast windows, 
dark with the purple robes of royal saints, or 
blazing with yellow glories around the heads of 
earthly martyrs and heavenly messengers. The 
billows of the great organ roared among the 
clustered columns, as the sea breaks amidst the 
basaltic pillars which crowd the stormy cavern of 
the Hebrides. The voice of the alternate choirs 
of singing boys swung back and forward, as the 
silver censer swung in the hands of the white- 
robed children. The sweet cloud of incense rose 
in soft, fleecy mists, full of penetrating sugges- 
tions of the East and its perfumed altars. The 
knees of twenty generations had worn the pave- 
ment ; their feet had hollowed the steps ; their 
shoulders had smoothed the columns. Dead bish- 
ops and abbots lay under the marble of the floor 
in their crumbled vestments; dead warriors, in 
rusted armor, were stretched beneath their sculp- 
tured effigies. And all at once all the buried 
multitudes who had ever worshipped there came 
thronging in through the aisles. They choked 
every space, they swarmed into all the chapels, 
they hung in clusters over the parapets of the 
galleries, they clung to the images in every 
niche, and still tne vast throng kept flowing and 
(lowing in, until the living were lost in the rush 
of the returning dead who had reclaimed their 
own. Then, as his dream became more fan 


502 


ELSIE VENNEIL 


tastic, the huge cathedral itself seemed to change 
into the wreck of some mighty antediluviap, 
vertebrate ; its flying-buttresses arched round 
like ribs, its piers shaped themselves into limbs, 
ond the sound of the organ-blast changed to 
the wind whistling through its thousand-jointeif 
skeleton. 

And presently the sound lulled, and softened 
and softened, until it was as the murmur of a 
distant swarm of bees. A procession of monks 
wound along through an old street, chanting, as 
they walked. In his dream he glided in among 
them and bore his part in the burden of their 
song. He entered with the long train under a 
low arch, and presently he was kneeling in a nar- 
row cell before an image of the Blessed Maiden 
holding the Divine Child in her arms, and his lips 
seemed to whisper, — 

Sancta Maria^ ora pro nobis ! 

He turned to the crucifix, and, prostrating him- 
self before the spare, agonizing shape of the Holy 
Sufferer, fell into a long passion of tears and 
broken prayers. He rose and flung himself, worn- 
out, upon his hard pallet, and, seeming to slum- 
ber, dreamed again within his dream. Once more 
in the vast cathedral, with throngs of the living 
choking its aisles, amidst jubilant peals from the 
cavernous depths of the great organ, and cborai 
melodies ringing from the fluty throats of the 
singing boys. A day of great rejoicings^ — for 


ELSIE VENNER. 


503 


ft prelate was to be consecrated, and the bones of 
the mighty skeleton-minster were shaking with 
anthems, as if there were life of its own within 
its buttressed ribs. He looked down at his feet ; 
the folds of the sacred robe were flowing about 
them: he put his hand to his head; it was 
crowned with the holy mitre. A long sigh, as 
of perfect content in the consummation of all his 
earthly hopes, breathed through the dreamer’s 
lips, and shaped itself, as it escaped, into the 
blissful murmur, — 

Ego sum Episcopus! 

One grinning gargoyle looked in from beneath 
the roof through an opening in a stained window. 
It was the face of a mocking fiend, such as the 
old builders loved to place under the eaves to 
spout the rain through their open mouths. It 
looked at him, as he sat in his mitred chair, 
with its hideous grin growing broader and 
broader, until it laughed out aloud, — such a 
hard, stony, mocking laugh, that he awoke out 
of his second dream through his first into his 
common consciousness, and shivered, as he 
turned to the two yellow sermons which he was 
to pick, over and weed of the little thought they 
Miight contain, for the next day’s service. 

The Reverend Chauncy Fairweather was too 
much taken up with his own bodily and spirit- 
ual condition to be deeply mindful of others. 
Ho carried the note requesting the prayers of the 


D04 


ELSIE VENNEK. 


congregation in his pocket all day ; and the soni 
in distress, which a single tender petition might 
have soothed, and perhaps have saved from de« 
Bpair or fatal error, found no voice in the tempie 
to plead for it before the Throne of Mercy I 


ELSIE VENNEB 


605 


CHAPTER XXVin. 

THE SECRET IS WmSPERED, 

The Reverend Chauncy FairweathePs con- 
j;regation was not large, but select. The lines 
cf social cleavage run through religious creeds 
as if they were of a piece with position and 
fortune. It is expected of persons of a certain 
breeding, in some parts of New England, that 
they shall be either Episcopalians or Unitarians. 
The mansion-house gentry of Rockland were 
pretty fairly divided between the little chapel 
with the stained window and the trained rector, 
and the meeting-house where the Reverend Mr. 
Fairweather officiated. 

It was in the latter that Dudley Venner wor- 
shipped, when he attended service anywhere,-— 
which depended very much on the caprice of 
Elsie. He saw plainly enough that a generous 
dnd liberally cultivated nature might find a ref- 
uge and congenial souls in either of these two 
persuasions, but he objected to some points of 
the formal creed of the older church, and espe- 
cially to the mechanism which renders it hard 
to get free from its outworn and offensive for- 


506 


ELSIE VENNEB. 


mulaB, — remembering how Archbishop Tillotson 
wished in vain that it could be “ well rid of ” 
the Athanasian Creed. This, and the fact that 
the meeting-house was nearer than the chapel 
determined him, when the new rector, who was 
not quite up to his mark in education, was 
appointed, to take a pew in the liberal ” wor- 
shippers^ edifice. 

Elsie was very uncertain in her feeling about 
going to church. In summer, she loved rather 
to stroll over The Mountain, on Sundays. There 
was even a story, that she had one of the caves 
before mentioned fitted up as an oratory, and 
that she had her own wild way of worshipping 
the God whom she sought in the dark chasms 
of the dreaded cliffs. Mere fables, doubtless ; 
but they showed the common belief, that Elsie, 
with all her strange and dangerous elements of 
character, had yet strong religious feeling mingled 
with them. The hymn-book which Dick had 
found, in his midnight invasion of her chamber, 
opened to favorite hymns, especially some of the 
Methodist and Quietist character. Many had 
noticed, that certain tunes, as sung by the choir, 
seemed to impress her deeply; and some said, 
that at such times her whole expression would 
change, and her stormy look would soften so as 
to remind them of her poor, sweet mother. 

On the Sunday morning after the talk recorded 
111 the last chapter, Elsie made herself ready tc 
go to meeting. She was dressed much as usua. 


ELSIE VENNER. 


507 


excepting that she wore a thick veilj turned aside, 
but ready to conceal her features. It was natu- 
ral enough that she should not wish to be looked 
in the face by curious persons who would be star- 
ing to see what effect the occurrence of the past 
week had had on her spirits. Her father attended 
her willingly; and they took their seats in the 
pew, somewhat to the surprise of many, who had 
hardly expected to see them, after so humiliating 
a family development as the attempted crime of 
their kinsman had just been furnishing for the 
astonishment of the public. 

The Reverend Mr. Fairweather was now in 
his coldest mood. He had passed through the 
period of feverish excitement which marks a 
change of religious opinion. At first, when he 
had begun to doubt his own theological posi- 
tions, he had defended them against himself with 
more ingenuity and interest, perhaps, than he 
could have done against another; because men 
rarely take the trouble to understand anybody’s 
difficulties in a question but their own. After 
this, as he began to draw off from different points 
of his old belief, the cautious disentangling of 
himself from one mesh after another gave sharp- 
viess to his intellect, and the tremulous eagerness 
with which he seized upon the doctrine which, 
piece by piece, under "^arious pretexts and with 
various disguises, he was appropriating, gave in- 
terest and something like passion to his words. 
But when he had gradually accustomed his people 


ELSIE VENNER. 


508 

to his new phraseology, and was really adjusi/* 
ing his sermons and his service to disguise his 
thoughts, he lost at once all his intellectual acute- 
ness and all his spiritual fervor. 

Elsie sat quietly through the first part of the 
eeivice, which was conducted in the cold, me- 
chanical way to be expected. Her face was hid- 
den by her veil ; but her father knew her state of 
feeling, as well by her movements and attitudes 
as by the expression of her features. The hymn 
had been sung, the short prayer offered, the Bible 
read, and the long prayer was about to begin. 
This was the time at which the “ notes ” of any 
who were in affliction from loss of friends, the 
sick who were doubtful of recovery, those who 
had cause to be grateful for preservation of life 
or other signal blessing, were wont to be read. 

Just then it was that Dudley Venner noticed 
that his daughter was trembling, — a thing so 
rare, so unaccountable, indeed, under the circum- 
stances, that he watched her closely, and began 
to fear that some nervous paroxysm, or other 
malady, might have just begun to show itself in 
this v/ay upon her. 

The minister had in his pocket two notes. 
One, in the handwi’iting of Deacon Soper, was 
from a member of this congregation, returning 
thanks for his preservation through a season of 
great peril, — supposed to be the exposure which 
he had shared with others, when standing in the 
tircle around Dick Venner. The other Wt»3 the 


ELSIE VENiSTER. 


509 


arioiiymous one, in a female hand, which he had 
received the evening before. He forgot them 
both. His thoughts were altogether too much 
taken up with more important matters. He 
prayed through all the frozen petitions of his ex- 
purgated form of supplication, and not a single 
heait was soothed or lifted, or reminded that its 
sorrows were struggling their way up to heaven, 
borne on the breath from a human soul that was 
warm with love. 

The people sat down as if relieved when the 
dreary prayer was finished. Elsie alone remained 
standing until her father touched her. Then she 
sat down, lifted her veil, and looked at him with 
a blank, sad look, as if she had suffered some 
pain or wrong, but could not give any name or 
expression to her vague trouble. She did not 
tremble any longer, but remained ominously still, 
as if she had been frozen where she sat. 

Can a man love his own soul too well ? 

Who, on the whole, constitute the nobler class 
of human beings ? those who have lived mainly 
JO make sure of their own personal welfare in 
another and future condition of existence, or they 
who have worked with all their might for their 
race, for their country, for the advancement of the 
kingdom of God, and left all personal arrange- 
ments concerning themselves to the sole charge 
of Him who made them and is responsible to 
Hims-^lf for their safe-keeping? Is an ancho- 
ut«* who has worn the stone floor of his cell into 


510 


ELSIE VEXNER. 


basins with his L»xees bent in prayer, more accept* 
able than the soldier who gives his life for the 
mainienance of any sacred right or truth, with- 
out thinking what will specially become of him 
in a world where there are two or three million 
colonists a month, from this one planet, to be 
cared for? These are grave questions, which 
must suggest themselves to those who know 
that there are many profoundly selfish persons 
who are sincerely devout and perpetually oceu- 
pied with their own future, while there are others 
who are perfectly ready to sacrifice themselves 
for any worthy object in this world, but are really 
too little occupied with their exclusive personality 
to think so much as many do about what is to 
become of them in another. 

The Reverend Chauncy Fairweather did not, 
most certainly, belong to this latter class. There 
axe several kinds of believers, whose history we 
find among the early converts to Christianity. 

There was the magistrate, whose social position 
was such that he preferred a private interview in 
the evening with the Teacher to following him 
with the street-crowd. He had seen extraordi- 
nary facts which had satisfied him that the young 
Galilean had a divine commission. But still he 
AToss-questioned the Teacher himself. He was 
not ready to accept statements without explana 
tion. That was the right kind of man. See how 
be stood up for the legal rights of his Master 
when the people were for laying hands on liim ! 


ELSIE VENNEK. 


511 


And again, there was the government official, 
intrusted with public money, which, in those 
days, implied that he was supposed to be honest. 
A single look of that heavenly countenance, and 
two words of gentle command, were enough for 
him. Neither of tho^^e men, the early disciple 
nor the evangelist, seems to have been thinking 
primarily about his own personal safety. 

But now look at the poor, miserable turnkey, 
whose occupation shows what he was like to be, 
and who had just been thrusting two respectable 
strangers, taken from the hands of a mob, covered 
with stripes and stripped of clothing, into the 
inner prison, and maldng their feet fast in the 
stocks. His thought, in the moment of terror, 
is for himself : first, suicide ; then, what he shall 
do, — not to save his household, — not to fulfil 
his duty to his office, — not to repair the outrage 
he has been committing, — but to secure his own 
personal safety. Truly, character shows itself as 
much in a man’s way of becoming a Christian 
as in any other! 

Elsie sat, statue-like, through the sermon. 

It would not be fair to the reader to give an ab- 
stract of that. When a man who has been bred 
to free thought and free speech suddenly finds 
himself stepping about, like a dancer amidst his 
eggs, among the old addled majority-votes which 
he must not tread upon, he is a spectacle for 
men and angels. Submission to intellectual prec- 
edent and authoritj does very well for those who 


512 


ELSIE VENNER. 


have been bred to it ; we know that the under^ 
ground courses of their minds are laid in the Ro- 
man cement of tradition, and that stately and 
splendid structures may be reared on such a 
foundation. But to see one laying a platform 
over heretical quicksands, thirty or forty or fifty 
years deep, and then beginning to build upon it, 
is a sorry sight. A new convert from the re- 
formed to the ancient faith may be very strong 
in the arms, but he will always have weak legs 
and shaky knees. He may use his hands well, 
and hit hard with his fists, but he will never 
stand on his legs in the way the man does who 
inherits his belief. 

The services were over at last, and Dudley 
Venner and his daughter walked home together 
in silence. He always respected her moods, and 
saw clearly enough that some inward trouble was 
weighing upon her. There was nothing to be 
said in such cases, for Elsie could never talk of 
her griefs. An hour, or a day, or a week of 
brooding, with perhaps a sudden flash of vio- 
lence ; this was the way in which the impressions 
which make other women weep, and tell their 
griefs by word or letter, showed their eflects in 
her mind and acts. 

She wandered off up into the remoter parts of 
The Mountain, that day, after their return. No 
me saw just where she went, — indeed, no one 
knew its forest-recesses and rocky fastnesses aj 
ehe did She was gone until late at night ; anc 


ELSIE VENNER. 


51Jj 

R?hen Old Sophy, who had watched for her, bound 
Dp her long hair for her sleep, it was damp with 
the cold dews. 

The old black woman looked at her without 
Bpeaking, but questioning her with every feature 
as to the sorrow that was weighing on her. 

Suddenly she turned to Old Sophy. 

“ You want to know what there is troubling 
me,” she said. “ Nobody loves me. I cannot 
love anybody. What is love, Sophy?” 

“ It’s what poor Ol’ Sophy’s got for her Elsie,” 
the old woman answered. “Tell me, darlin’, — 

don’ you love somebody ? — don’ you love ? 

you know, — oh, tell me, darlin’, don’ you love to 
see the gen’l’man that keeps up at the school 
where you go ? They say hs’s the pooticst gen- 
Tman that was ever in the town here. Don’ be 
’fraid of poor Ol’ Sophy, darlin’, — she loved a 
man once, — see here ! Oh, I’ve showed you this 
often enough I ” 

She took from her pocket a half of one of the 
old Spanish silver coins, such as were current in 
the earlier part of this century. The other half 
of it had been lying in the deep sea-sand for more 
than fifty years. 

Elsie looked her in the face, but did not answer 
in words. What strange intelligence was that 
which passed between them through the diamond 
Byes and the little beady black ones ? — what 
jubtile intercommunication, penetrating so much 
deeper than articulate speech ? This was the 

83 


514 


ELSIE VENNER 


nearest approach to sympathetic relations that 
Elsie ever had : a kind of dumb intercourse of 
feeling, such as one sees in the eyes of brute 
mothers looking on their young. But, subtile as 
it was, it was narrow and individual ; whereas an 
emotion which can shape itself in language opens 
the gate for itself into the great community ot 
human affections ; for every word we speak 
the medal of a dead thought or feeling, struck in 
the die of some human experience, worn smooth 
by innumerable contacts, and always transferred 
warm from one to another. By words we share 
the common consciousness of the race, which has 
shaped itself in these symbols. By music we 
reach those special states of consciousness which, 
being without /om, cannot be shaped with the 
mosaics of the vocabulary. The language of the 
eyes runs deeper into the personal nature, but it 
is purely individual, and perishes in the expres- 
sion. If we consider them all as growing out of 
the consciousness as their root, language is the 
leaf, music is the flower ; but when the eyes meet 
and search each other, it is the uncovering of the 
blanched stem through which the whole life runs, 
but which has never taken color or form Irom the 
sunlight. 

For three days Elsie did not return to the 
school. Much of the time she was among the 
woods and rocks. The season was now begin 
aing to wane, and the forest to put on its autum 
aal glory. The dreamy haze was beginning to 


ELSIE VENNER. 


515 


loften tne landscape, and the most delicious daya 
of the year were lending their attraction to the 
scenery of The Mountain. It was not very sin- 
gular that Elsie should be lingering in her old 
haunts, from which the change of season must 
soon drive her. But Old Sophy saw clearly 
enough that some internal conflict was going 
on, and' knew very well that it must have its 
own way and work itself out as it best could. 
As much as looks could tell Elsie had told her. 
She had said in words, to be sure, that she could 
not love. Something warped and thwarted the 
emotion which would have been love in another, 
no doubt ; but that such an emotion was striving 
with her against all malign influences which in- 
terfered with it the old woman had a perfect cer- 
tainty in her own mind. 

Everybody who has observed the working ot 
emotions in persons of various temperaments 
knows well enough that they have periods of 
incuhation^ which differ with the individual, and 
with the particular cause and degree of excite- 
ment, yet evidently go through a strictly self- 
limited series of evolutions, at the end of which, 
Iheir result — an act of violence, a paroxysm of 
tears, a gradual subsidence into repose, or what- 
ever it may be — declares itself, like the last stage 
of an attack of fever and ague. No one can ob- 
serve children without noticing that there is a 
personal equation^ to use the astronomer’s Ian 
guage, in their tempers, so that one sulks an houi 


516 


ELSIE VENDER. 


over an offence which makes another a fury for 
five minutes, and leaves him or her an angeJ 
when it is over. 

At the end of three days, Elsie braided hei 
long, glossy, black hair, and shot a golden arrow 
through it. She dressed herself with more than 
usual care, and came down in the morning superb 
in her stormy beauty. The brooding jiaroxysm 
was over, or at least her passion had changed its 
phase. Her father saw it with great relief; he 
had always many fears for her in her hours and 
days of gloom, but, for reasons before assigned, 
had felt that she must be trusted to herself, with- 
out appealing to actual restraint, or any other 
supervision than such as Old Sophy could exer- 
cise without offence. 

She went off at the accustomed hour to the 
school. All the girls had their eyes on her. None 
so keen as these young misses to know an inward 
movement by an outw^ard sign of adornment : if 
they have not as many signals as the ships that 
sail the great seas, there is not an end of ribbon 
or a turn of a ringlet which is not a hieroglyphic 
with a hidden meaning to these little cruisers over 
the ocean of sentiment. 

The girls all looked at Elsie with a new 
thought; for she was more sumptuously arrayed 
than perhaps ever before at the school ; and they 
said to themselves that she had come meaning to 
draw the young master’s eyes upon her. That 
Was it; what else could it be? The beautifuj 


ELSIE VENNER. 


517 


wid girl with the diamond eyes meant to dazzle 
the handsome young gentleman. He would be 
afraid to love her ; it couldn’t be true, that which 
some people had said in the village ; she wasn’t 
the kind of young lady to make JMr. Langdon 
happy. Those dark people are never safe: so 
one of the young blondes said to herself. Elsie 
was not literary enough for such a scholar : so 
thought JVIiss Charlotte Ann Wood, the young 
poetess. She couldn’t have a good temper, with 
those scowling eyebrows ; this was the opinion 
of several broad-faced, smiling girls, who thought, 
each in her own snug little mental sanctum^ that, 
if, etc., etc., she could make him so happy ! 

Elsie had none of the still, wicked light in her 
eyes, that morning. She looked gentle, but 
dreamy ; played with her books ; did not trouble 
herself with any of the exercises, — which in it- 
self was not very remarkable, as she was always 
allowed, under some pretext or other, to have her 
own way. 

The school-hours were over at length. The 
girls went out, but she lingered to the last. She 
then came up to Mr. Bernard, with a book in her 
hand, as if to ask a question. 

“ Will you walk towards my home with me to- 
day ? ” she said, in a very low voice, little more 
than a whisper. 

Mr. Bernard was startled by the request, put in 
such a way. He had a presentiment of some 
;)ainful scene ^r other. But there was nothn*^ 


018 


ELSIE VENNER. 


to be done but to assure her that it would give 
him great pleasure. 

So they wallvcd along together on their way 
toward the Dudley mansion. 

“ I have no friend,” Elsie said, all at once. 
“ Nothing loves me but one old woman. I can* 
not love anybody. They tell me there is some- 
thing in my eyes that draws people to me and 
makes them faint. Look into them, will you ? ” 

She turned her face toward him. It was very 
pale, and the diamond eyes were glittering with 
a film, such as beneath other lids would have 
rounded into a tear. 

“ Beautiful eyes, Elsie,” he said, — “sometimes 
very piercing, — but soft now, and looking as if 
there were something beneath them that friend- 
ship might draw out. I am your friend, Elsie. 
Tell me what I can do to render your life hap- 
pier.” 

Love me!^^ said Elsie Venner. 

What shall a man do, when a woman makes 
such a demand, involving such an avowal? It 
was the tenderest, cruellest, humblest moment of 
Mr. Bernard’s life. He turned pale, he trembled 
almost, as if he had been a woman listening to 
her lover’s declaration. 

“ Elsie,” he said, presently, “ I so long to be 
of some use to you, to have your confidence and 
sympathy, that I must not let you say or dc 
anything to put us in false relations. I do lov« 
you, Elsie, as a suffering sister with sorrows o 


ELSIE VENNER. 


519 


her own, — as one whom I wmiild save at the 
risk of my happiness and life, — as one who 
needs a true friend more than any of all the 
young girls I have known. More than this you 
would not ask me to say. You have been 
through excitement and trouble lately, and it 
has made you feel such a need more than ever. 
Give me your hand, dear Elsie, and trust me that 
I will be as true a friend to you as if we were 
children of the same mother.” 

Elsie gave him her hand mechanically. It 
seemed to him that a cold aura shot from it 
along his arm and chilled the blood running 
through his heart. He pressed it gently, looked 
at her with a face full of grave kindness and 
sad interest, then softly relinquished it. 

It was all over with poor Elsie. They walked 
almost in silence the rest of the way. Mr. Ber- 
nard left her at the gate of the mansion-house, 
and returned with sad forebodings. Elsie went 
at once to her own room, and did not come from 
it at the usual hours. At last Old Sophy be- 
gan to be alarmed about her, went to her apart- 
ment, and, finding the door unlocked, entered 
cautiously. She found Elsie lying on her bed, 
her brows strongly contracted, her eyes dull, her 
whole look that of great suffering. Her first 
inought was that she had been doing herself a 
larm by some deadly means or other. But 
Elsie saw her fear, and reassured her. 

“ No,” she said, “ there is nothing wrong, such 


520 


ELSIE VENNER. 


as you are thinking of; I am not dying. You 
may send for the Doctor ; perhaps he can take 
the pain from my head. That is all I want him 
to do. There is no use in the pain, that I know 
of; if he can stop it, let him.” 

So they sent for the old Doctor. It was not 
long before the solid trot of Caustic, the old bay 
horse, and the crashing of the gravel under the 
wheels, gave notice that the physician was driv- 
ing up the avenue. 

The old Doctor was a model for visiting prac- 
titioners. He always came into the sick-room 
with a quiet, cheerful look, as if he had a con- 
sciousness that he was bringing some sure relief 
with him. The way a patient snatches his first 
look at his doctor’s face, to see whether he is 
doomed, whether he is reprieved, whether he is 
unconditionally pardoned, has really something 
terrible about it. It is only to be met by an im- 
perturbable mask of serenity, proof against any- 
thing and everything in a patient’s aspect. The 
physician whose face reflects his patient’s condi- 
tion like a mirror may do well enough to exam- 
ine people for a life-insurance office, but does not 
belong to the sick -room. The old Doctor did not 
keep people waiting in dread suspense, while he 
stayed talking about the case, — the patient all the 
time thinking that he and the friends are discuss- 
ing some alarming symptom or formidable opera- 
tion which he himself is by-and-by to hear of. 

He w^as in Elsie’s room almost before sha 


ELSIE VENNER. 


S2i 

fcnew he was in the house. He came to hsr 
bedside in such a natural, quiet way, that it 
seemed as if he were only a friend who had 
dropped in for a moment to say a pleasant 
word. Yet he was very uneasy about Elsie 
until he had seen hgr ; he never knew what 
might happen to her or those about her, and 
came prepared for the worst. 

“ Sick, my child ? ’’ he said, in a very soft, 
low voice. 

Elsie nodded, without speaking. 

The Doctor took her hand, — whether with 
professional views, or only in a friendly way, it 
would have been hard to tell. So he sat a few 
minutes, looking at her all the time with a kind 
of fatherly interest, but with it all noting how 
she lay, how she breathed, her color, her expres- 
sion, all that teaches the practised eye so much 
without a single question being asked. He saw 
she was in suffering, and said presently, — 

“ You have pain somewhere ; where is it ? ” 

She put her hand to her head. 

As she was not disposed to talk, he watched 
her for a while, questioned Old Sophy shrewdly 
a few minutes, and so made up his mind as to 
the probable cause of disturbance and the proper 
remedies to be used. 

Some very silly people thought the old Doc- 
tor did not believe in medicine, because he gave 
css than certain po^r half-taught creatures in 
the smaller neighboring towns, who took advan- 


622 


ELSIE VENNER. 


tage of people’s sickness to disgust and disturb 
them with all manner of ill-smelling and ill-be- 
having drugs. In truth, he hated to give any* 
thing noxious or loathsome to those who weift 
uncomfortable enough already, unless he was 
very sure it would do goqdj — in which case, he 
never played with drugs, but gave good, hon- 
est, efficient doses. Sometimes he lost a family 
of the more boorish sort, because they did not 
think they got their money’s worth out of him, 
unless they had something more than a taste of 
everything he carried in his saddle-bags. 

He ordered some remedies which he thought 
would relieve Elsie, and left her, saying he would 
call the next day, hoping to find her better. But 
the next day came, and the next, and still Elsie 
was on her bed, — feverish, restless, wakeful, si- 
lent. At night she tossed about and wandered, 
and it became at length apparent that there was 
a settled attack, something like what they called 
formerly, a “ nervous fever.” 

On the fourth day she was more restless than 
common. One of the women of the house came 
in to help to take care of her ; but she showed 
an aversion to her presence. 

“ Send me Helen Darley,” she said, at last. 

The old Doctor told them, that, if possible, they 
n ust indulge this fancy of hers. The caprices 
of sick people were never to be despised, least 
of all of such persons as Elsie, when rendered 
irritable and exacting by pain and weakness. 


ELSIE VENNER. 


523 


So a message was sent to Mr Silas Peckham 
at the Apollinean Institute, to know if he could 
not spare Miss Helen Darley for a few days, if 
required, to give her attention to a young lady 
who attended his school and who was now lying 
ill, — no other person than the daughter of Dudley 
Vernier. 

A mean man never agrees to anything without 
deliberately turning it over, so that he may see 
its dirty side, and, if he can, sweating the coin 
he pays for it. If an archangel should offer to 
save his soul for sixpence, he would try to find 
a sixpence with a hole in it. A gentleman says 
yes to a great many things without stopping to 
think : a shabby fellow is known by his caution 
in answering questions, for fear of compromising 
his pocket or himself. 

Mr. Silas Peckham looked very grave at the 
request. The dooties of Miss Darley at the In- 
stitoot were important, very important He paid 
her large sums of money for her time, — more 
than she could expect to get in any other insti- 
tootion for the edoocation of female youth. A 
deduction from her selary would be necessary, in 
case she should retire from the sphere of her 
looties for a season. He should be put to ex try 
expense, and have to perform additional labors 
Vimself. He would consider of the matter. K 
any arrangement could be made, he would send 
word to Squire Venner^s folks. 

** Miss Daiieyi” said Silas Peckbami “ the’ a 


524 


ELSIE VENNER. 


message from Squire Venner’s that his daughter 
wants you down at the mansion-house to see her. 
She’s got a fever, so they inform me. If it’s any 
kind of ketchin’ fever, of course you won’t think 
f goin’ near the mansion-house. If Doctor Kii- 
tredge says it’s safe, perfec’ly safe, I can’t objec 
to your goin’, on sech conditions as seem to be 
fair to all concerned. You will give up your pay 
for the whole time you are absent, — portions of 
days to be caounted as whole days. You will be 
charged with board the same as if you eat your 
victuals with the household. The victuals are of 
no use after they’re cooked but to be eat, and 
your bein’ away is no savin’ to our folks. I shall 
charge you a reasonable compensation for the 
demage to the school by the absence of a teacher. 
If Miss Crabs undertakes any dooties belongin’ 
to your department of instruction, she will look 
to you for sech pecooniary considerations as you 
may agree upon between you. On these condi- 
tions I am willin’ to give my consent to your 
temporary absence from the post of dooty. I 
will step down to Doctor Kittredge’s, myself, 
and make inquiries as to the natur’ of the com- 
plaint.” 

Mr. Peckham took up a rusty and very narrow* 
brimmed hat, which he cocked upon one side of 
his head, with an air peculiar to the rural gentry 
U was the hour when the Doctor expected to be 
in his office, unless he had some special call which 
kipt him from home. 


£LSI£ ViiNNEB. 


525 


He found the Reverend Chauncy Fairweather 
just taking leave of the Doctor. His hand was 
on the pit of his stomach, and his countenance 
was expressive of inward uneasiness. 

“ Shake it before using,” said the Doctor ; “ and 
the sooner you make up your mind to speak right 
out, the better it will be for your digestion.” 

“ Oh, Mr. Peckham! Walk in, Mr. Peckham ! 
Nobody sick up at the school, I hope ? ” 

“ The haalth of the school is fust-rate,” replied 
Mr. Peckham. “ The sitooation is uncommonly 
favorable to saloobrity.” (These last words were 
from the Annual Report of the past year.) “ Prov- 
idence has spared our female youth in a remarka- 
ble measure. Fve come with reference to another 
consideration. Doctor Kittredge, is there any 
ketchin’ complaint goin’ about in the village ? ” 

‘‘ Well, yes,” said the Doctor, “ I should say 
there was something of that sort. Measles. 
Mumps. And Sin, — thaPs always catching.” 

The old Doctor’s eye twinkled ; once in a while 
he had his little touch of humor. 

Silas Peckham slanted his eye up suspiciously 
at the Doctor, as if he was getting some kind of 
advantage over him. That is the way people 
of his constitution are apt to take a bit of pleas« 
an try. 

“ I don’t mean sech things, Doctor ; I mean 
.Vvers. Is there any ketchiii’ fevers — bilious, or 
nervous, or typus, or whatever* you cedi ’em — now 


526 


ELSIE VENNER. 


goin’ round this village ? That’s what 1 want to 
ascertain, if there’s no impropriety.” 

The old Doctor looked at Silas through Ilia 
speciacles. 

“ Hard and sour as a green cider-apple,” he 
thought to himself. “No,” he said, — “I don’t 
know any such cases.” 

“ What’s the matter with Elsie Venner ? ” 
asked Silas, sharply, as if he expected to have 
him this time. 

“ A mild feverish attack, I should call it in any- 
body else ; but she has a peculiar constitution, 
and I never feel so safe about her as I should 
about most people.” 

“ Anything ketchin’ about it ? ” Silas asked, 
cunningly. 

“ No, indeed ! ” said the Doctor, — “ catching ? 
■ — no, — what put that into your head, Mr. Peck- 
ham ? ” 

“Well, Doctor,” the conscientious Principal an- 
swered, “ I naterally feel a graat responsibility, a 
very graaat responsibility, for the noomerous and 
lovely young ladies committed to my charge. It 
has been a question, whether one of my assistants 
should go, accordin’ to request, to stop with Misa 
Venner for a season. Nothin’ restrains my givin 
my full and free consent to her goin’ but the fear lest 
contagious maladies should be introdooced among 
those lovely female youth. I shall abide by your 
opinion, — I understan’ you to say distinc’ly, hei 
complaint is not ketchin’ ? — and urge upon Mis» 


ELSIE VENNER. 


527 


Darley to fulfil her dooties to a sufferin’ fellow- 
nreature at any cost to myself and my establish » 
ment. We shall miss her very much ; but it is a 
good cause, and she shall go, — and I shall trust 
that Providence will enable us to spare her with- 
out permanent demage to the interests of the In- 
stitootion.” 

Saying this, the excellent Principal departed, 
with his rusty narrow-brimmed hat leaning over, 
as if it had a six-knot breeze abeam, and its gun- 
wale (so to speak) was dipping into his coat-col- 
lar. He announced the result of his inquiries to 
Helen, who had received a brief note in the mean 
time from a poor relation of Elsie’s mother, then 
at the mansion-house, informing her of the criti- 
cal situation of Elsie and of her urgent desire 
that Helen should be with her. She could not 
hesitate. She blushed as she thought of the 
comments that might be made ; but what were 
such considerations in a matter of life and death? 
She could not stop to make terms with Silas 
Peckham. She must go. He might fleece her, 
if he would ; she would not complain, — not even 
to Bernard, who, she knew, would bring the Prin- 
cipal to terms, if she gave the least hint of his in- 
tended extortions. 

So Helen made up her bundle of clothes to be 
sent after her, took a booic or two with her to help 
her pass the time, and departed for the Dudley 
mansion. It was with a great inward effort that 
iihe undertook the sisterly task which was thus 


528 


ELSIE VENNER. 


forced upon her. She had a kind of terror ol 
Elsie ; and the thought of having charge of her 
of being alone with her, of coming under the fuL 
influence of those diamond eyes, — if, indeed, 
their light were not dimmed by suffering and 
weariness, — was one she shrank from. But what 
could she do? It might be a turning-point in 
the life of the poor girl ; and she must overcome 
all her fears, all ^ repugnance, and go to her 
rescue. 

“ Is Helen come ? ” said Elsie, when she heard, 
with her fine sense quickened by the irritability of 
sickness, a light footfall on the stair, with a ca- 
dence unlike that of any inmate of the house. 

“ It’s a strange woman’s step,” said Old Sophy, 
who, v/ith her exclusive love for Elsie, was natu- 
rally disposed to jealousy of a new-comer. ‘‘ Let 
or Sophy set at th’ foot o’ th’ bed, if th’ young 
missis sets by th’ piller, — won’ y’, darlin’ ? The’ 
’s nobody that’s white can love y’ as th’ ol’ black 
woman does ; — don’ sen’ her away, now, there’s 
a dear soul I ” 

Elsie motioned her to sit in the place she had 
pointed to, and Helen at that moment entered 
Mie room. Dudley Venner followed her. 

“ She is your patient,” he said, “ except while 
the Doctor is here. She has been longing to have 
you with her, and we shall expect you to make 
her well in a few days.” 

So Helen Darley found herself established in 
the most unexpected manner as an inmate of thi 


ELSIE VENNER. 


529 


Dudle} Liansion. She sat with Elsie most of the 
time, by day and by night, soothing her, and try* 
ing to enter into her confidence and affections, if 
it should prove that this strange creature wai 
really capable of truly sympathetic emotions. 
What was this unexplained something which 
came between her soul and that of every other 
human being with whom she was in relations ? 
Helen perceived, or rather felt, that she had, folded 
up in the depths of her being, a true womanly 
nature. Through the cloud that darkened her as- 
pect, now and then a ray would steal forth, which, 
like the smile of stern and solemn people, was all 
the more impressive from its contrast with the ex- 
pression she wore habitually. It might well be 
that pain and fatigue had changed her aspect; 
but, at any rate, Helen looked into her eyes with- 
out that nervous agitation which their cold glitter 
had produced on her when they were full of their 
natural light. She felt sure that her mother must 
have been a lovely, gentle woman. There were 
gleams of a beautiful nature shining through 
some ill-defined medium which disturbed and 
made them dicker and waver, as distant images 
do when seen through the rippling upward cur- 
rents of heated air. She loved, in her own way, 
the old black woman, and seemed to keep up a 
kind of silent communication with her, as if they 
lid not require the use of speech. She appeared 
to be tranquillized by the presence of Helen, and 
loved to have her seated at the bedside. Yet 


530 


ELSIE VENNER. 


Bomething, whatever it was, prevented her from 
opening her heart to her kind companion ; and 
even now there were times when she would lie 
looking at her, with such a still, watchful, almost 
dangerous expression, that Helen would sigh, and 
change her place, as persons do whose breath 
some cunning orator has been sucking out of 
them with his spongy eloquence, so that, when 
he stops, they must get some air and stir about, 
or they feel as if they should be half smothered 
and palsied. 

It was too much to keep guessing what was 
the meaning of all this. Helen determined to ask 
Old Sophy some questions which might prob- 
ably throw light upon her doubts. She took the 
opportunity one evening when Elsie was lying 
asleep and they were both sitting at some dis- 
tance from her bed. 

‘‘ Tell me, Sophy,” she said, “ was Elsie al- 
ways as shy as she seems to be now, in talking 
with those to whom she is friendly ? ” 

“ Alway jes’ so. Miss Darlin^, ever sence she 
was little chiP. When she was five, six year 
old, she lisp some, — call me Thophy ; that make 
her kin’ o’ ’shamed, perhaps : after she grow up, 
she never lisp, but she kin’ o’ got the way o’ not 
talkin’ much. Fac’ is, she don’ like talkin’ as 
liommon gals do, ’xcep’ jes’ once in a whLe 
some partic’lar folks, — ’n’ then not much.’ 

“ How old is Elsie ? ” 

“ Eighteen year this as’ September.” 


ELSIE VENNER. 


531 


“ How long ago did her mother die ? ” Helen 
asked, with a little trembling in her voice. 

‘‘ Eighteen year ago this October,” said Old 
Sophy. 

Helen was silent for a moment. Then she 
whispered, almost inaudibly, — for her voice ap- 
peared to fail her, — 

“ What did her mother die of, Sophy?” 

The old woman’s small eyes dilated until a 
ring of white showed round their beady cen- 
tres. She caught Helen by the hand and clung 
to it, as if in fear. She looked round at Elsioj 
who lay sleeping, as if she might be listening. 
Then she drew Helen towards her and led her 
softly out of the room. 

‘‘ ’Sh . — ’sh ! ” she said, as soon as they were 
outside the door. “ Don’ never speak in this 
house ’bout what Elsie’s mother died of!” she 
said. “ Nobody never says nothin’ ’bout it. Oh, 
God has made Ugly Things wi’ death in their 
mouths. Miss Darlin’, an’ He knows what they’re 
for; but my poor Elsie! — to have her blood 
changed in her before It was in July Mis- 

tress got her death, but she liv’ till three week 
after my poor Elsie was born.” 

She could speak no more. She had said 
enough. Helen remembered the stories she had 
heard on coming to the village, and among them 
me referred to in an early chapter of this narra- 
tive. All the unaccountable looks and taste? 
Iind ways of Elsie came back to her in the light 


532 


ELSIE VENNER. 


of an ante-natal impression which had mipgied 
an alien element in her nature. She knew the 
secret of the fascination which looked out of her 
cold, glittering eyes. She knew the significance 
of the strange repulsion which she felt in he 
own intimate consciousness underlying the in* 
explicable attraction which drew her towards 
the young girl in spite of this repugnance. She 
began to look with new feelings on the contra- 
dictions in her moral nature, — the longing for 
sympathy, as shown by her wishing for Helen’s 
company, and the impossibility of passing be- 
yond the cold circle of isolation within which 
she had her being. The fearful truth of that 
instinctive feeling of hers, that there was some* 
thing not human looking out of Elsie’s eyes, 
came upon her with a sudden flash of penetrat- 
ing conviction. There were two warring princi- 
ples in that superb organization and proud souL 
One made her a woman, with all a woman’s 
powers and longings. The other chilled all the 
currents of outlet for her emotions. It made her 
tearless and mute, when another woman would 
have wept and pleaded. And it infused into 
jier soul something — it was cruel now to cal 
it malice — which was still and watchful and 
dangerous, — which waited its opportunity, and 
then shot like an arrow from its bow out of the 
coil of brooding premeditation. Even those who 
had never seen the white scars on Dick Venner’s 
^st, or heard the half-told story of her sup 


ELSIE VENNER. 


533 


posed attempt to do a graver mischief, knew 
well enough by looking at her that she was one 
of the creatures not to be tampered with, — 
silent in anger and swift in vengeance. 

Helen could not return to the bedside at once 
after this communication. It was with altered 
eyes that she must look on the poor girl, the 
victim of such an unheard-of fatality. All was 
explained to her now. But it opened such 
depths of solemn thought in her awakened con- 
sciousness, that it seemed as if the whole mys- 
tery of human life were coming up again before 
her for trial and judgment. “ Oh,” she thought, 
if, while the will lies sealed in its fountain, it 
may be poisoned at its very source, so that it 
shall flow dark and deadly through its whole 
course, who are we that we should judge oui 
fellow-creatures by ourselves ? ” Then came the 
terrible question, how far the elements them- 
selves are capable of perverting the moral na- 
ture : if valor, and justice, and truth, the strength 
of man and the virtue of woman, may not be 
poisoned out of a race by the food of the Aus- 
taralian in his forest, — by the foul air and 
darkness of the Christians cooped up in the 
‘Henement-houses ” close by those who live in 
the palaces of the great cities? 

She walked out into the garden, lost in thought 
ttpon these dark and deep matters. Presently 
she heard a step behind her, and Elsie’s father 
Vime up and joined her. Since his introduction 


534 


ELSIE VENNER. 


to Helen at the distinguished tea-party given by 
the Widow Rowens, and before her coming to 
Bit with Elsie, Mr. Dudley Venner had in the 
most accidental way in the world met her on 
several occasions ; once after church, when she 
happened to be caught in a slight shower and ho 
insisted on holding his umbrella over her on her 
way home ; — once at a small party at one of the 
mansion-houses, where the quick-eyed lady of the 
house had a wonderful knack of bringing people 
together who liked to see each other ; — perhaps 
at other times and places ; but of this there is no 
certain evidence. 

They naturally spoke of Elsie, her illness, and 
the aspect it had taken. But Helen noticed in 
all that Dudley Venner said about his daughter 
a morbid sensitiveness, as it seemed to her, an 
aversion to saying much about her physical con- 
dition or her peculiarities, — a wish to feel and 
speak as a parent should, and yet a shrinking, 
as if there were something about Elsie which 
he could not bear to dwell upon. She thought 
she saw through all this, and she could interpret 
it aL charitably. There were circumstances 
ibout his daughter which recalled the great 
torrovr of his life ; it was not strange that this 
perpetual reminder should in some degree have 
modified his feelings as a father. But what g 
life he must have been leading for so manj 
years, with this perpetual source of distress 
which be could not name! Helen knew wel 


ELSIE VENNER. 


535 


enough, now, the meaning of the sadness which 
had left such traces in his features and tones, 
and it made her feel very kindly and compas- 
sionate towards him. 

So they walked over the crackling leaves in 
the garden, between the lines of box breathing 
its fragrance of eternity ; — for this is one of the 
odors which carry us out of time into the abysses 
of the unbeginning past ; if we ever lived on an- 
other ball of stone than this, it must be that there 
was box growing on it. So they walked, finding 
their way softly to each other’s sorrows and sym- 
pathies, each matching some counterpart to the 
other’s experience of life, and startled to see how 
the different, yet parallel, lessons they had been 
taught by suffering had led them step by step to 
the same serene acquiescence in the orderings of 
that Supreme Wisdom which they both devoutly 
recognized. 

Old Sophy was at the window and saw them 
walking up and down the garden-alleys. She 
watched them as her grandfather the savage 
watched the figures ihat moved among the 
trees when a hostile tribe was lurking about his 
mountain. 

“ There’ll be a weddin’ in the ol’ house,” she 
Baid, “ before there’s roses on them bushes ag’in. 
But it won’ be my poor Elsie’s weddin’, ’n’ 01’ 
Sophy won’ be there.” 

When Helen prayed in the silence of her soul 
’hat evening, it was not that Elsie’s life might be 


536 


ELSIE VENDER. 


spared. She dared not ask that as a favor of 
Heaven. What could life be to her but a perpet- 
ual anguish, and to those about her an ever- 
present terror ? Might she but be so influenced 
by divine grace, that what in her was most truly 
human, most purely woman-like, should overcome 
the dark, cold, unmentionable instinct which had 
pervaded her being like a subtile poison : that was 
EiU she could ask, and the rest she left to a highei 
wisdom and tenderer love than her owiv. 


ELSIE VENNEE. 


537 


CHAPTER XXIX 

THE WHITE ASH. 

When Helen returned to Elsie’s bedside, it 
Was with a new and still deeper feeling of sym- 
pathy, such as the story told by Old Sophy might 
well awaken. She understood, as never before, 
the singular fascination and as singular repulsion 
which she had long felt in Elsie’s presence. It 
had not been without a great effort that she had 
forced herself to become the almost constant at- 
tendant of the sick girl ; and now she was learn- 
ing, but not for the first time, the blessed truth 
which so many good women have found out for 
themselves, that the hardest duty bravely per- 
formed soon becomes a habit, and tends in due 
time to transform itself into a pleasure. 

The old Doctor was beginning to look graver, 
n spite of himself. The fever, if such it was, 
went gently forward, wasting the young girl’s 
Dowers of resistance from day to day; yet she 
showed no disposition to take nourishment, and 
seemed literally to be living on air. It was re- 
markable that with all this her look was almost 
natural, and her features were hardly sharpened 


538 


ELSIE VENNEK. 


BO as to suggest that her life was burning away 
He did not like this, nor various other unobtru 
sive signs of danger which his practised eye de 
tected. A very small matter might turn the 
balance which held life and death poised against 
each other. He surrounded her with precau 
lions, that Nature might have every opportunity 
of cunningly shifting the weights from the scale 
of death to the scale of life, as she will often do 
if not rudely disturbed or interfered with. 

Little tokens of good-will and kind remem- 
brance were constantly coming to her from the 
girls in the school and the good people in the 
village. Some of the mansion-house people ob- 
tained rare flowers which they sent her, and her 
table was covered with fruits which tempted her 
in vain. Several of the school-girls wished to 
make her a basket of their own handiwork, and, 
Ailing it with autumnal flowers, to send it as a 
joint offering. Mr. Bernard found out their proj- 
ect accidentally, and, wishing to have his share in 
it, brought home from one of his long walks some 
boughs full of variously tinted leaves, such as 
were still clinging to the stricken trees. With 
these he brought also some of the already fallen 
►eaflets of the white ash, remarkable for their rich 
olive-purple color, forming a beautiful contrast 
with some of the lighter-hued leaves. It so hap- 
pened that this particular tree, the white ash, did 
not grow upon The Mountain, and the leaflets 
Were more welcome for their comparative rarity 


ELSIE VENI^EIl. 


530 


So the girls made their basket, and the floor of 
it they covered with the rich olive-purple leaflets. 
Such late flowers as tney could lay their hands 
npon served to fill it, and with many kindly mes- 
sages they sent it to Miss Elsie Venner at the 
Dudley mansion-house. 

Elsie was sitting up in her bed when it came, 
languid, but tranquil, and Helen was by her, as 
usual, holding her hand, which was strangely cold, 
Helen thought, for one who was said to have 
some kind of fever. The school-girls’ basket was 
brought in with its messages of love and hopes 
for speedy recovery. Old Sophy was delighted 
to see that it pleased Elsie, and laid it on the 
bed before her. Elsie began looking at the flow 
ers and taking them from the basket, that she 
might see the leaves. All at once she appeared 
to be agitated ; she looked at the basket, — then 
around, as if there were some fearful presence 
about her which she was searching for with her 
eager glances. She took out the flowers, one by 
one, her breathing growing hurried, her eyes star- 
ing, her hands trembling, — till, as she came near 
the bottom of the basket, she flung out all the 
rest with a hasty movement, looked upon the 
olive-purple leaflets as if paralyzed for a moment, 
shrunk up, as it were, into herself in a curdling 
terror, dashed the basket from her, and fell back 
senseless, with a faint cry which chilled the blood 
of the start-led listeners at her bedside. 

^ Take it away ! — take it away . — quick I 


540 


ELSIE VENNER. 


said Old Sophy, as she hastened to her mistress’s 
pillow. “ It’s the leaves of the tree that was al- 
ways death to her, — take it away! She can’t 
live wi’ it in the room ! ” 

The poor old woman began chafing Elsie’s 
hands, and Helen to try to rouse her with harts- 
horn, while a third frightened attendant gathered 
up the flowers and the basket and carried them 
out of the apartment. She came to herself after 
a time, but exhausted and then wandering. In 
her delirium she talked constantly as if she were 
in a cave, with such exactness of circumstance 
that Helen could not doubt at all that she had 
some such retreat among the rocks of The Moun- 
tain, probably fitted up in her own fantastic way, 
where she sometimes hid herself from all human 
eyes, and of the entrance to which she alone pos- 
sessed the secret. 

All this passed away, and left her, of course, 
weaker than before. But this was not the only 
influence the unexplained paroxysm had left be- 
hind it. From this time forward there was a 
change in her whole expression and her manner. 
The shadows ceased flitting over her features, 
and the old woman, who watched her from day 
to day and from hour to hour as a mother 
watches her child, saw the likeness she bore to 
her mother coming forth more and more, as the 
cold glitter died out of the diamond eyes, and 
the stormy scowl disappeared from the dark brows 
and low forehead. 


ELSIE VENNER. 


541 


With all the kindness and indulgence her fa- 
ther had bestowed upon her, Elsie had never felt 
that he loved her. The reader knows well enough 
what fatal recollections and associations had 
nrozen up the springs of natural affection in 
his breast. There was nothing in the world 
he would not do for Elsie. He had sacrificed his 
whole life to her. His very seeming carelessness 
about restraining her was all calculated; he 
knew that restraint would produce nothing but 
utter alienation. Just so far as she allowed him, 
he shared her studies, her few pleasures, her 
thoughts ; but she was essentially solitary and 
uncommunicative. No person, as was said long 
ago, could judge him, — because his task was 
not merely difficult, but simply impracticable to 
human powers. A nature like Elsie’s had neces- 
sarily to be studied by itself, and to be followed 
in its laws where it could not be led. 

Every day, at different hours, during the whole 
of his daughter’s illness, Dudley Venner had sat 
by her, doing all he could to soothe and please 
her. Always the same thin film of some emo- 
tional non-conductor between them ; always that 
kind of habitual regard and family-interest, min- 
gled with the deepest pity on one side and a sort 
of respect on the other, which never warmed into 
outward evidences of affection. 

It was after this occasion, when she had been 
BO profoundly agitated by a seemingly insignifi- 
taut cause, that her father and Old Sophy were 


542 


ELSIE VENNER. 


sitting, one at one side of her bed and one at ths 
other. She had fallen into a light slumber. As 
they were looking at her, the same thought came 
into both their minds at the same moment. Old 
Sophy spoke for both, as she said, in a low 
voice, — 

“ It’s her mother’s look, — it’s her mother’s 
own face right over again, — she never look’ so 
before, — the Lord’s hand is on her I His will be 
done ! ” 

When Elsie woke and lifted her languid eyes 
upon her father’s face, she saw in it a tenderness, 
a depth of affection, such as she remembered at 
rare moments of her childhood, when she had 
won him to her by some unusual gleam of sun- 
shine in her fitful temper. 

“ Elsie, dear,” he said, “ we were thinking how 
much your expression was sometimes like that 
of your sweet mother. If you could but have 
seen her, so as to remember her ! ” 

The tender look and tone, the yearning of the 
daughter’s heart for the mother she had never 
seen, save only with the unfixed, undistinguish- 
ing eyes of earliest infancy, perhaps the under- 
bought that she might soon rejoin her in another 
state of being, — all came upon her with a sudden 
overflow of feeling which broke through all the 
barriers between her heart and her eyes, and 
Elsie wept. It seemed to her father as if the 
malign influence — evil spirit it might almosl 
be called — which had pervaded her being, haa 


ELSIE VENNER. 


543 


at last been driven forth or exorcised, and that 
these tears were at once the sign and the pledge 
of her redeemed nature. But now she was to be 
soothed, and not excited. After her ^.cars she 
slept again, and the look her face wore was 
peaceful as never before. 

Old Sophy met the Doctor at the door and 
told him all the circumstances connected with 
the extraordinary attack from which Elsie had 
suffered. It was the purple leaves, she said. 
She remembered that Dick once brought home 
a branch of a tree with some of the same leaves 
on it, and Elsie screamed and almost fainted 
then. She, Sophy, had asked her, after she had 
got quiet, what it was in the leaves that made 
her feel so bad. Elsie couldn’t tell her, — didn’t 
like to speak about it, — shuddered whenever 
Sophy mentioned it. 

This did not sound so strangely to the old 
Doctor as it does to some who listen to this 
narrative. He had known some curious exam- 
ples of antipathies, and remembered reading of 
others still more singular. He had known those 
who could not bear the presence of a cat, and 
recollected the story, often told, of a person’s 
hiding one in a chest when one of these sensi- 
tive individuals came into the room, so as not 
to disturb him ; but he presently began to sweat 
and turn pale, and cried out that there must be a 
cat hid somewhere. He knew people who were 
poisoned by strawberries, by honey, by different 


544 


ELSIE VENNER. 


meats, — many who could not endure cheese, — • 
some who could not bear the smell of roses. If 
he had known all the stories in the old books, he 
would have found that some have swooned and 
become as dead men at the smell of a rose,— 
that a stout soldier has been known to turn and 
run at the sight or smell of rue, — that cassia 
and even olive-oil have produced deadly faint- 
ings in certain individuals, — in short, that al- 
most everything has seemed to be a poison to 
somebody. 

“Bring me that basket, Sophy,” said the old 
Doctor, “ if you can find it.” 

Sophy brought it to him, — for he had not yet 
entered Elsie’s apartment. 

“ These purple leaves are from the white ash,” 
he said. “ You don’t know the notion that peo- 
ple commonly have about that tree, Sophy ? ” 

“ I know they say the Ugly Things never go 
where the white ash grows,” Sophy answered. 
“ Oh, Doctor dear, what I’m thinkin’ of a’n’t 
true, is it?” 

The Doctor smiled sadly, but did not answer. 
He went directly to Elsie’s room. Nobody would 
have known by his manner that he saw any spe- 
cial change in his patient. He spoke with her 
as usual, made some slight alteration in his 
prescriptions, and left the room wdth a kind, 
cheerful look. He met her father on the stairs. 

“ Is it as I thrDught ? ” said Dudley Venner. 

“ There is everything to fear,” the Doctor saia 


ELSIE VENNER. 


* and not much, I am afraid, to hope. Does not 
her face recall to you one that you remember, as 
never before ? ’’ 

“ Yes,” her father answered, — “ oh, yes ! What 
is the meaning of this change which has come over 
her features, and her voice, her temper, her whole 
being ? Tell me, oh, tell me, what is it ? Can 
it be that the curse is passing away, and my 
daughter is to be restored to me, — such as her 
mother would have had her, — such as her moth- 
er was ? ” 

‘‘ Walk out with me into the garden,” the 
Doctor said, ‘-and I will tell you all I know 
and all I think about this great mystery of 
Elsie's life.” 

They walked out together, and the Doctor 
began : — 

“ She has lived a double being, as it were, — 
the consequence of the blight which fell upon 
her in the dim period before consciousness. You 
can see what she might have been but for this. 
You know that for these eighteen years her 
whole existence has taken its character from 
that influence which we need not name. But 
you will remember that few of the lower forms 
of life last as human beings do; and thus it 
might have been hoped and trusted with some 
show of reason, as I have always suspected you 
hoped and trusted, perhaos more confidently than 
myself, that the lower nature which had become 
.ngrafted on the higher ^^ ould die out and leave 
85 


546 


ELSIE VEI^NEB. 


the real woman’s life she inherited to outlive this 
accidental principle which had so poisoned her 
childhood and youth. I believe it is so dying 
out ; but I am afraid, — yes, I must say it, 1 fear 
it has invol'/ed the centres of life in its own de- 
cay, There is hardly any pulse at Elsie’s wrist; 
no stimulants seem to rouse her ; and it looks as 
if life were slowly retreating inwards, so that by- 
and-by she will sleep as those who lie down in 
the cold and never wake.’* 

Strange as it may seem, her father heard all 
this not without deep sorrow, and such marks 
of it as his thoughtful and tranquil nature, long 
schooled by suffering, claimed or permitted, but 
with a resignation itself the measure of his past 
trials. Dear as his daughter might become to 
him, all he dared to ask of Heaven was that she 
might be restored to that truer self which lay 
beneath her false and adventitious being. K he 
could once see that the icy lustre in her eyes had 
become a soft, calm light, — that her soul was at 
peace with all about her and with Him above, — 
this crumb from the children’s table was enough 
for him, as it was for the Syro-Phoenician woman 
who asked that the dark spirit might go out from 
her daughter. 

There was little change the next day, until aU 
at once she said in a clear voice that she should 
like to see her master at the school, Mr. Langdon. 
lie came accordingly, and took the place of 
Helen at her bedside. It seemed as if Elsie hao 


ELSIE VENNER. 


54 ? 


forgotten the last scene with him. INIight it be 
that pride had come in, and she had sent for him 
only to show how superior she had grown to the 
weak ess which had betrayed her into that ex- 
traordinary rcf|uest, so contrary to the instincts 
and usages of her sex? Or was it that the 
singular change which had come over her had 
involved her passionate fancy for him and swept 
it away with her other habits of thought and 
feeling? Or could it be that she felt that all 
earthly interests were becoming of little account 
to her, and wished to place herself right with 
one to whom she had displayed a wayward 
movement of her unbalanced imagination ? She 
welcomed Mr. Bernard as quietly as she had 
received Helen Barley. He colored at the rec- 
ollection of that last scene, when he came into 
her presence; but she smiled with perfect tran- 
quillity. She did not speak to him of any ap- 
prehension; but he saw that she looked upon 
herself as doomed. So friendly, yet so calm did 
she seem through all their interview, that Mr. 
Bernard could only look back upon her mani- 
festation of feeling towards him on their walk 
from the school as a vagary of a mind laboring 
under some unnatural excitement, and wholly at 
variance with the true character of Elsie Venner 
as he saw her before him in her subdued, yet 
singular beauty. He looked with almost scien 
tific closeness of observation into the diamond 
eyes; but that peculiar lignt which he knew so 


548 


ELSIE VENNEB. 


well was not there. She was the same in ouc 
sense as on that first day when he had seen hef 
coiling and uncoiling her golden chain ; yet how 
different in every aspect which revealed her state 
of mind and emotion ! Something of tenderness 
there was, perhaps, in her tone towards him ; she 
would not have sent for him, had she not felt 
more than an ordinary interest in him. But 
through the whole of his visit she never lost her 
gracious self-possession. The Dudley race might 
well be proud of the last of its daughters, as she 
lay dying, but unconquered by the feeling of the 
present or the fear of the future. 

As for Mr. Bernard, he found it very hard to 
look upon her, and listen to her unmoved. There 
was nothing that reminded him of the stormy- 
browcd, almost savage girl he remembered in 
her fierce loveliness', — nothing of all her singu- 
larities of air and of costume. Nothing? Yes, 
one thing. Weak and suffering as she was, she 
had never parted with one particular ornament, 
such as a sick person would naturally, as it might 
be supposed, get rid of at once. The golden cord 
which she wore round her neck at the great party 
was still there. A bracelet was lying by her pil- 
low ; she had unclasped it from her wrist. 

Before Mr. Bernard left her, she said, — 

“ I shall never see you again. Some time or 
other, perhaps, you will mention my name to one 
whom you love. Give ner this from your schola. 
%nd friend Elsie.’’ 


ELSIE VENNER. 


549 


He took the bracelet, raised her hand to hia 
lips, then turned his face away ; in that mo- 
ment he was the weaker of the two. 

“ Good-bye,” she said ; “ thank you for com- 
ing.” 

His voice died away in his throat, as he tried 
to answer her. She followed him with her eyes 
as he passed from her sight through the door, 
and when it closed after him sobbed tremu- 
lously once or twice, — but stilled herself, and 
met Helen, as she entered, with a composed 
countenance. 

“ I have had a very pleasant visit from Mr. 
Langdon,” Elsie said. “ Sit by me, Helen, 
awhile without speaking ; I should like io 
If I can, — and to dream.” 


550 


£ILSI£ VJiNIfElB. 


CHAPTER XXX. 

THE GOLDEN CORD IS LOOSED. 

The Reverend Chauncy Fairweather, hearing 
that his parishioner’s daughter, Elsie, was very 
ill, could do nothing less than come to the 
mansion-house and tender such consolations as 
he was master of. It was rather remarkable 
that the old Doctor did not exactly approve of 
his visit. He thought that company of every sort 
might be injurious in her weak state. He was 
of opinion that Mr. Fairweather, though greatly 
interested in religious matters, was not the most 
sympathetic person that could be found ; in fact, 
the old Doctor thought he was too much taken 
up with his own interests for eternity to give 
himself quite so heartily to the need of other 
people as some persons got up on a rather 
more generous scale (our good neighbor Dr 
Honeywood, for instance) could do. However, 
all these things had better be arranged to suit 
her wants ; if she would like to talk with a cler- 
gyman, she had a great deal better see one as 
often as she liked, and run the risk of the ex- 
citement, than have a hidden wish for such a 


ELSIE VENNER. 


551 


visit and perhaps find herself too weak to see 
him by-and-by. 

The old Doctor knew by sad experience that 
dreadful mistake against which all medical prac- 
titioners should be warned. His experience may 
well be a guide for others. Do not overlook the 
desire for spiritual advice and consolation which 
patients sometimes feel, and, with the frightful 
mauvaise honte peculiar to Protestantism, alone 
among all human beliefs, are ashamed to tell. 
As a part of medical treatment, it is the phy- 
sician’s business to detect the hidden longing 
for the food of the soul, as much as for any 
form of bodily nourishment. Especially in the 
higher walks of society, where this unutterably 
miserable false shame of Protestantism acts in 
proportion to the general acuteness of the cul- 
tivated sensibilities, let no unwillingness to sug- 
gest the sick person’s real need suffer him to 
languish between his want and his morbid sen- 
sitiveness. What an infinite advantage the Mus- 
sulmans and the Catholics have over many of 
our more exclusively spiritual sects in the way 
they keep their religion always by them and 
lever blush for it! And besides this spiritual 
longing, we should never forget that 


“On some fond breast the parting sou] relies,” 

and the minister of religion, in addition to the 
lympathetic nature whicn we have a right to 


552 


ELSIE VENNER. 


demand in him, has trained himself to the art 
of entering into the feelings of others. 

The reader must pardon this digression, which 
introduces the visit of the Reverend Chauncy 
Fairweather to Elsie Venner. It was mentioned 
to her that he would like to call and see how she 
was, and she consented, — not with much appar- 
ent interest, for she had reasons of her own for 
not feeling any very deep conviction of his sym- 
pathy for persons in sorrow. But he came, and 
worked the conversation round to religion, and 
confused her with his hybrid notions, half made 
up of what he had been believing and teaching 
all his life, and half of the new doctrines which 
he had veneered upon the surface of his old be- 
lief. He got so far as to make a prayer with 
her, — a cool well-guarded prayer, which compro- 
mised his faith as little as possible, and which, 
if devotion were a game played against Provi- 
dence, might have been considered a cautious 
and sagacious move. 

When he had gone, Elsie called Old Sophy 
to her. 

“ Sophy,” she said, “ don’t let them send tha 
•old-hearted man to me any more. If your ol 
minister comes to see you, I should like to hear 
him talk. He looks as if he cared for every- 
body, and would care for me. And, Sophy, if 
I should die one of these days, I should like 
to have that old minister come and say what* 
ever is to be paid over me. It would comfort 


ELSIE VENNER 


553 


Dudley more, I know, than to have that hard 
man here, when you’re in trouble, — for some 
of you will be sorry when I’m gone, — won’t 
you, Sophy ? ” 

The poor old black woman could not stand 
this question. The cold minister had frozen 
Elsie until she felt as if nobody cared for hei 
or would regret her, — and her question had 
betrayed this momentary feeling. 

“Don’ talk so! don’ talk so, darlin’I” she 
cried, passionately. “ When you go, 01’ So- 
phy’U go ; ’n’ where you go, 01’ Sophy’ll go : 
’n’ we’ll both go t’ th’ place where th’ Lord takes 
care of all his children, whether their faces are 
white or black. Oh, darlin’, darlin’ ! if th’ Lord 
should let me die fus’, you shall fin’ all ready 
for you when you come after me. On’y don’ 
go ’n’ leave poor 01’ Sophy all ’lone in th* 
world ! ” 

Helen came in at this moment and quieted 
the old woman with a look. Such scenes were 
just what were most dangerous, in the state in 
which Elsie was lying : but that is one of the 
ways in which an affectionate friend sometimes 
unconsciously wears out the life which a hired 
nurse, thinking of nothing but her regular du- 
ties and her wages, would have spared from all 
emotional fatigue. 

The change which had come over Elsie’s dis- 
position was itself the cause of new excitements. 
How was it possible tnat her father could keep 


554 


ELSIE VENNER. 


away from her, now that she was coming back 
to the nature and the very look of her mother^ 
the bride of his youth ? How was it possible 
to refuse her, when she «iaid to Old Sophy, that 
she should like to have her minister come in 
and sit by her, even though his presence might 
perhaps prove a new somce of excitement? 

But the Reverend Doctor did come and sit 
by her, and spoke such soothing words to her, 
words of such peace and consolation, that from 
that hour she was tranquil as never before. All 
true hearts are alike in the hour of need ; the 
Catholic has a reserved fund of faith for his 
fellow-creature’s trying moment, and the Cal- 
vinist reveals those springs of human brother- 
hood and charity in his soul which are only 
covered over by the iron tables inscribed with 
the harder dogmas of his creed. It was enough 
that the Reverend Doctor knew all Elsie’s his- 
tory. He could not judge her by any formula, 
like those which have been moulded by past ages 
out of their ignorance. He did not talk with 
her as if she were an outside sinner, worse than 
iiimself. He found a bruised and languishing 
soul, and bound up its wounds. A blessed of. 
&ce, — one which is confined to no sect or creed 
Dut which good men in all times, under various 
names and with varying ministries, to suit the 
need of each age, of each race, of each individ- 
ual soul, have come forward to discharge fo 
heir suffering fellow-creatures. 


EL&IE VENNER. 


555 


After this there was little change in Elsie, ex 
eept that her heart beat more feebly every day, — 
BO that the old Doctor himself, with all his experi- 
ence, could see nothing to account for the gradual 
failing of the powers of life, and yet could find 
no remedy which seemed to arrest its progress in 
the smallest degree. 

“ Be very careful,” he said, ‘‘ that she is not 
allowed to make any muscular exertion. Any 
such effort, when a person is so enfeebled, may 
stop the heart in a moment; and if it stops, it 
will never move again.” 

Helen enforced this rule with the greatest care. 
Elsie was hardly allowed to move her hand or to 
speak above a whisper. It seemed to be mainly 
the question now, whether this trembling flame of 
life would be blown out by some light breath of 
air, or whether it could be so nursed and sheltered 
by the hollow of these watchful hands that it 
would have a chance to kindle to its natural 
brightness. 

Her father came in to sit with her in the 

evening. He had never talked so freely with her 
as during the hour he had passed at her bedside, 
telling her little circumstances of her mother’s 
ife, living over with her all that was pleasant in 
the past, and trying to encourage her with some 
cheerful gleams of hope for the future. A faint 
smile played over her face, but she did not an- 
swer his encouraging suggestions. The hour 


556 


ELSIE VENNER. 


came for him to leave her with those who 
watched by her. 

“ Good-night, my dear child,” he said, and 
stooping down, kissed her cheek. 

Elsie rose by a sudden effort, threw her armi 
round his neck, kissed him, and said, “Good-night, 
my dear father ! ” 

The. suddenness of her movement had taken 
him by surprise, or he would have checked so 
dangerous an effort. It was too late now. Hei 
arms slid away from him like lifeless weights, 
— her head fell back upon her pillow, — a long 
sigh breathed through her Ups. 

“ She is faint,” said Helen, doubtfully ; “ bring 
me the hartshorn, Sophy.” 

The old woman had started from her place, and 
was now leaning over her, looking in her face, and 
listening for the sound of her breathing. 

“ She’s dead ! Elsie’s dead ! My darlin’ ’s 
dead ! ” she cried aloud, filling the room with her 
utterance of anguish. 

Dudley Venner drew her away and silenced 
aer with a voice of authority, while Helen and 
an assistant plied their restoratives. It was all 
in vain. 

The solemn tidings passed from the chambei 
of death tlirough the family. The daughter, the 
hope of that old and honored house, was dead in 
the freshness of her youth, and the home of iti 


ELSIE VENNER. 


557 


solitary representative was hereafter doubly des- 
olate. 

A messenger rode hastily out of the avenue. 
A little after this the people of the village and 
*^he outlying farm-houses were startled by the 
ound of a bell. 

One, — two, — three, — four, — 

They stopped in every house, as far as the 

wavering vibrations reached, and listened 

five, — six, — seven, — 

It was not the little child which had been lying 
BO long at the point of death ; that could not be 

more than three or four years old 

eight, — nine, — ten, — and so on to fif- 
teen, — sixteen, — seventeen, — eighteen 

The pulsations seemed to keep on, — but it 
was the brain, and not the bell, that was throb- 
bing now. 

“ Elsie’s dead ! ” was the exclamation at a 
hundred firesides. 

“ Eighteen year old,” said old Widow Peake, 
rising from her chair. “Eighteen year ago i 
laid two gold eagles on her mother’s eyes, — he 
wouldn’t have anything but gold touch her eye* 
/ids, — and now Elsie’s to be straightened, — 
the Lord have mercy on her poor sinful soul!” 

Dudley Venner prayed that night that he might 
t e forgiven, if he had failed in any act of duty or 
kindness to this unfortunate child of his, now 
freed from all the woes born with her and so long 


558 


ELSIE VENNER. 


poisoning her soul. He thanked God for the 
brief interval of peace which had been granted 
her, for the sweet communion they had enjoyed 
in these last days, and for the hope of meet- 
ing her with that other lost friend in a better 
world. 

Helen mingled a few broken thanks and peti- 
tions with her tears : thanks that she had been 
permitted to share the last days and hours of this 
pool sister in sorrow ; petitions that the grief of 
bereavement might be lightened to the lonely 
parent and the faithful old servant. 

Old Sophy said almost nothing, but sat day 
and night by her dead darling. But sometimes 
her anguish would find an outlet in strange 
sounds, something between a cry and a musical 
note, — such as none had ever heard her utter be- 
fore. These were old remembrances surging up 
from her childish days, — coming through her 
mother from the cannibal chief, her grandfather, 
— death-wails, such as they sing in the moun- 
tains of Western Africa, when they see the fires 
on distant hill-sides and know that their own 
wives and children are undergoing the fate of 
captives. 

The time came when Elsie was to be laid by 
ber mother in the small square marked by the 
white stone. ' 

It was not unwillingly that the Reverend 
Chaun-cy Fairweather had relinquished the duty 
of conducting the service to the Reverend Doo 


ELSIE VENNER. 


559 


tor Honey wood, in accordance with Elsie’s re- 
quest. He could not, by any reasoning, reconcile 
his present way of thinking with a hope for the 
future of his unfortunate parishioner. Any gooc 
old Roman Catholic priest, born and bred to his 
faith and his business, would have found a loop- 
hole into some kind of heaven for her, by virtue 
of his doctrine of “ invincible ignorance,” or other 
special proviso ; but a recent convert cannot enter 
into the working conditions of his new creed. 
Beliefs must be lived in for a good while, before 
they accommodate themselves to the soul’s wants, 
and wear loose enough to be comfortable. 

The Reverend Doctor had no such scruples. 
Like thousands of those who are classed nomi- 
nally with the despairing believers, he had never 
prayed over a departed brother or sister without 
feeling and expressing a guarded hope that there 
was mercy in store for the poor sinner, whom 
parents, wives, children, brothers and sisters could 
not bear to give up to utter ruin without a word, 
— and would not, as he knew full well, in virtue 
of that human love and sympathy which nothing 
can ever extinguish. And in this poor Elsie’s 
history he could read nothing which the tears of 
the recording angel might not wash away. As 
the good physician of the place knew the diseases 
that assailed the bodies of men and women, so 
he had learned the mysteries of the sickness of 
the soul. 

So many wished to look upon Elsie’s face once 


560 


ELSIE VENDER. 


more, that her father would not deny them ; nay, 
he was pleased that those who remembered hei 
living should see her in the still beauty of death. 
Helen and those with her arrayed her for this 
farewell-view. All was ready for the sad or cu» 
rious eyes which were to look upon her. There 
was no painful change to be concealed by any 
artifice. Even her round neck was left uncov- 
ered, that she might be more like one who slept. 
Only the golden cord was left in its place : some 
searching eye might detect a trace of that birth- 
mark which it was whispered she had always 
worn a necklace to conceal. 

At the last moment, when all the preparations 
were completed. Old Sophy stooped over her, 
and, with trembling hand, loosed the golden cord. 
She looked intently, for some little space : there 
was no shade nor blemish where the ring of gold 
had encircled her throat. She took it gently 
away and laid it in the casket which held her 
ornaments. 

“ The Lord be praised ! ” the old woman cried, 
aloud. “ He has taken away the mark that wa? 
on her ; she’s fit to meet his holy angels now ! ” 

So Elsie lay for hours in the great room, in 
a kind of state, with flowers all about her, — 
her black hair braided as in life, — her brows 
smooth, as if they had never known the scowl 
of passion, — and on her lips the faint smile 
with which she had uttered her last “ Good 
night.” The young girls from the school looked 


ELSIE VENNER. 


561 


at her, one after another, and passed on, sob* 
bing, carrying in their hearts the picture that 
would be with them all their clays. The great 
people of the place were all there with their si- 
lent sympathy. The lesser kind of gentry, and 
many of the plainer folk of the village, half- 
pleased to find themselves passing beneath the 
stately portico of the ancient mansion-house, 
crowded in, until the ample rooms were over- 
flowing. All the friends whose acquaintance 
we have made were there, and many from re- 
moter villages and towns. 

There was a deep silence at last. The hour 
had come for the parting words to be spoken 
over the dead. The good old minister’s voice 
rose out of the stillness, subdued and tremulous 
at first, but growing firmer and clearer as he 
went on, until it reached the ears of the visitors 
who were in the far, desolate chambers, looking 
at the pictured hangings and the old dusty por- 
traits. He did not tell her story in his prayer. 
He only spoke of our dear departed sister as 
one of many whom Providence in its wisdom 
has seen fit to bring under bondage from their 
cradles. It was not for us to judge them by 
any standard of our own. He who made the 
heart alone kaew the infirmities it inherited or 
acquired. For all that our dear sister had pre- 
sented that was interesting and attractive in her 
character we were to be grateful; for whatcvei 
was dark or inexplicable we must trust that tha 


562 


ELSIE VENNER. 


deep shadow which rested on the twilight dawn 
of her being might render a reason before the 
bar of Omniscience ; for the grace which had 
lightened her last days we should pour out oui 
hearts in thankful acknowledgment. From (he 
life and the death of this our dear sister w 
should learn a lesson of patience with our fel 
low-creatures in their inborn peculiarities, of 
charity in judging what seem to us wilful faults 
of character, of hope and trust, that, by sickness 
or affliction, or such inevitable discipline as life 
must always bring with it, if by no gentler 
means, the soul which had been left by Nature 
to wander into the path of error and of suffer- 
ing might be reclaimed and restored to its true 
aim, and so led on by divine grace to its eternal 
welfare. He closed his prayer by commending 
each member of the afflicted family to the di- 
vine blessing. 

Then all at once rose the clear sound of the 
girls’ voices, in the sweet, sad melody of a fu- 
neral hymn, — one of those which Elsie had 
marked, as if prophetically, among her own fa- 
vorites. 

And so they laid her in the earth, and show- 
ered down flowers upon her, and filled her grave, 
and covered it with green sods. By the side of 
it was another oblong ridge, with a white stone 
standing at its head. Mr. Bernard looked upon 
It, as he came close to the place where Elsie 
Was laid, and read the inscription, — 


ELSIE VENNER. 


563 


CATALINA 

WIFE TO DUDLEY VENNER 

DIED 

OCTOBER 1840 

AGED XX TEAHa. 

A gentle rain fell on the turf after it waft 
aid. This was the beginning of a long and 
dreary autumnal storm, a deferred “ equinoctial,” 
as many considered it. The mountain streams 
were all swollen and turbulent, and the steep 
declivities were furrowed in every direction by 
new channels. It made the house seem doubly 
desolate to hear the wind howling and the rain 
beating upon the roofs. The poor relation who 
was staying at the house would insist on Hel- 
en’s remaining a few days: Old Sophy was in 
such a condition, that it kept her in continual 
anxiety, and there were many cares which Helen 
could take off from her. 

The old black woman’s life was buried in her 
darling’s grave. She did nothing but moan and 
lament for her. At night she was restless, and 
would get up and wander to Elsie’s apartment 
and look for her and call her by name. At 
other times she would lie awake and listen to 
the wind and the rain, — sometimes with such 
E wild look upon her face, and with such sud- 
den starts and exclamations, that it seemed as 
if she heard spirit-voices and were answering the 


564 


ELSIE VENNER. 


whispers of unseen visitants. With all this were 
mingled hints of her old superstition, — forebod- 
insrs of something fearful about to happen, — 
perhaps the great final catastrophe of all things, 
according to the prediction current in Ihe kitch 
ens of Rockland. 

“Hark!” Old Sophy would say, — “don’ you 
hear th’ crackin’ ’n’ th’ snappin’ up in Th’ Moun- 
tain, ’n’ th’ rollin’ o’ th’ big stones? The’ ’s 
somethin’ stirrin’ among th’ rocks; I hear th’ 
Boun’ of it in th’ night, when th’ wind has 
stopped blowin’. Oh, stay by me a little 
while. Miss Darlin’ ! stay by me I for it’s th’ 
Las’ Day, maybe, that’s close on us, ’n’ I feel 
as if I couldn’ meet th’ Lord all alone ! ” 

It was curious, — but Helen did certainly rec- 
ognize sounds, during the lull of the storm, which 
were not of falling rain or running streams, — 
short snapping sounds, as of tense cords break- 
ing, — long uneven sounds, as of masses roll- 
ing down steep declivities. But the morning 
came as usual; and as the others said nothing 
of these singular noises, Helen did not think it 
necessary to speak of them. AU day long sh 
and the humble relative of Elsie’s mother, wh 
had appeared as poor relations are wont to in 
the great crises of life, were busy in arranging 
the disordered house, and looking over the vari- 
ous objects which Elsie’s singular tastes had 
brought together, to dispose of them as hei 
father might direct. They all met together a 


ELSIE VENDER. 


56 > 


the usual hour for tea. One of the servantj^ 
came in, looking very blank, and said to the 
poor relation, — 

well is gone dry ; we have nothing but 
rain-water.” 

Dudley Venner’s countenance changed ; he 
sprang to his feet and went to assure himself 
of the fact, and, if he could, of the reason of 
it. For a well to dry up during such a rain- 
storm was extraordinary, — it was ominous. 

He came back, looking very anxious. 

“ Did any of you notice any remarkable sounds 
last night,” he said, — “ or this morning ? Hark ! 
do you hear anything now?” 

They listened in perfect silence for a few 
moments. Then there came a short cracking 
sound, and two or three snaps, as of parting 
cords. 

Dudley Venner called all his household to- 
gether. 

“We are in danger here, as I think, to- 
night,” he said, — “not very great danger, per- 
haps, but it is a risk I do not wish you to 
run. These heavy rains have loosed some of 
the rocks above, and they may come down and 
endanger the house. Harness the horses. El- 
bridge, and take all the family away. IVIiss 
Darley will go to the Institute, the others will 
pass the night at tne Mountain House. I shall 
Btay here, myself: it is not at an likely thal 
anything will come of these warnings; but if 


666 


ELSIE VENNER. 


there should, I choose to be here and take my 
chance.” 

It needs little, generally, to frighten servants 
and they were all ready enough' to go. The 
poor relation was one of the timid sort, and 
was terribly uneasy to be got out of the house. 
This left no alternative, of course, for Helea 
but to go also. They all urged upon Dudley 
Venner to go with them : if there was danger, 
why should he remain to risk it, when he sent 
away the others? 

Old Sophy said nothing until the time came 
for her to go with the second of Elbridge’s car- 
riage-loads. 

“ Come, Sophy,” said Dudley Venner, “ get 
your things and go. They will take good care 
of you at the Mountain House; and when we 
have made sure that there is no real danger 
you shall come back at once.” 

“ No, Massa ! ” Sophy answered. “ Tve seen 
Elsie into th^ ground, ’n’ I a’nT goin’ away to 
come back ’n’ fin’ Massa Venner buried under 
th’ rocks. My darlin’ ’s gone ; ’n’ now, if Massa 
goes, ’n’ th’ oP place goes, it’s time for OP Sophy 
to go, too. No, Massa Venner, we’ll both stay 
in th’ oP mansion ’n’ wait for th’ Lord ! ” 

Nothing could change the old woman’s deter 
mination ; and her master, who only feared, but 
did not really expect the long-deferred catastro- 
phe, was obliged to consent to her staying. The 
ludden drying of the well at such a time was the 


ELSIE VENDER. 


567 


most alarming sign ; for he remembered that the 
same thing had been observed just before great 
mountain-slides. This ^ong rain, too, was jusii 
the kind of cause which was likely to looser 
the strata of rock piled up in the ledges ; if the 
dreaded event should ever come to pass, it would 
be at such a time. 

He paced his chamber uneasily until long past 
midnight. If the morning came without accident, 
he meant to have a careful examination made of 
all the rents and fissures above, of their direction 
and extent, and especially whether, in case of a 
mountain-slide, the huge masses would be like to 
reach so far to the east and so low down the 
declivity as the mansion. 

At two o’clock in the morning he was dozing 
in his chair. Old Sophy had lain down on her 
bed, and was muttering in troubled dreams. 

All at once a loud crash seemed to rend the 
very heavens above them : a crack as of the 
thunder that follows close upon the bolt, — a 
rending and crushing as of a forest snapped 
through all its stems, torn, twisted, splintered, 
dragged with all its ragged boughs into one 
chaotic ruin. The ground trembled under them 
as in an earthquake ; the old mansion shuddered 
^o that all its windows chattered in their case- 
ments ; the great chimney shook off its heavy 
cap-stones, which came down on the roof with 
resounding concussions ; and the echoes of The 
^lountain roared and bellowed in long reduplica 


568 


ELSIE VENNER. 


tioii, as if its whole foundations were rent, and 
this were the terrible voice of its dissolution. 

Dudley Venner rose from his chair, folded his 
arms, and awaited his fate. There was no know- 
ing where to look for safety ; and he remembered 
too well the story of the family that was lost by 
rushing out of the house, and so hurrying into 
the very jaws of death. 

He had stood thus but for a moment, when 
he heard the voice of Old Sophy in a wild cry of 
terror : — 

“ It’s th’ Las’ Day ! It’s th’ Las’ Day ! The 
Lord is cornin’ to take us all ! ” 

“ Sophy ! ” he called ; but she did not hear him 
or heed him, and rushed out of the house. 

The worst danger was over. If they were to 
be destroyed, it would necessarily be in a few 
seconds from the first thrill of the terrible con- 
vulsion. He waited in awful suspense, but calm. 
Not more than one or two minutes could have 
passed before the frightful tumult and all its 
sounding echoes had ceased. He called Old So 
phy; but she did not answer. He went to the 
western window and looked forth into the dark- 
ness. He could not distinguish the outlines of 
the landscape, but the white stone was clearly 
visible, and by its side the new-made mound. 
Nay, what was that which obscured its outline, 
in shape like a human figure ? He flung open 
the window and sprang through. It was all that 
there was left of poor Old Sophy, stretched out 
dfeless, upon her darling’s grave. 


EXjSIC V 


569 


Ke had scarcely composed her limbs and drawn 
the sheet over her, when the neighbors began to 
aiiive from all directions. Each was expecting 
to hear of houses overwhelmed and families de- 
stroyed ; but each came with the story that hia 
own household was safe. It was not until the 
morning dawned that the true nature and extent 
of the sudden movement was ascertained. A 
great seam had opened above the long cliff, and 
the terrible Rattlesnake Ledge, with all its en- 
venomed reptiles, its dark fissures and black cav- 
erns, was buried forever beneath a mighty in- 
cumbent mass of ruin. 


670 


ELSIE VENNEB. 


CHAPTER XXXI. 

MK. SILAS PECKHAM RENDERS HIS ACCOUNT. 

The morning rose clear and bright. The long 
storm was over, and the calm autumnal sunshine 
was now to return, with all its infinite repose and 
sweetness. With the earliest dawn exploring 
parties were out in every direction along the 
southern slope of The Mountain, tracing the 
ravages of the great slide and the track it had 
followed. It proved to be not so much a slide 
as the breaking off and falling of a vast line of 
cliff, including the dreaded Ledge. It had folded 
over like the leaves of a half-opened book when 
they close, crushing the trees below, piling it? 
ruins in a glacis at the foot of what had been 
the overhanging wall of the cliff, and filling up 
that deep cavity above the mansion-house which 
bore the ill-omened name of Dead Man’s Hollow. 
This it was which had saved the Dudley man- 
sion. The falling masses, or huge fragments 
breaking off from them, would have swept the 
house and all around it to destruction but for 
this deep shelving dell, into which the stream 
of ruin was happily directed. It was, indeed, 


ELSIE VENNER. 


571 


one of Nature’s conservative revolutions ; for the 
fallen masses made a kind of shelf, which in- 
terposed a level break between the inclined planes 
above and below it, so that the nightmare-fancies 
of the dwellers in the Dudley mansion, and in 
many other residences under the shadow of The 
Mountain, need not keep them lying awake here- 
after to listen for the snapping of roots and the 
splitting of the rocks above them. 

Twenty-four hours after the falling of the cliff, 
it seemed as if it had happened ages ago. The 
new fact had fitted itself in with all the old pre- 
dictions, forebodings, fears, and acquired the soli- 
darity belonging to all events which have slipped 
out of the fingers of Time and dissolved in the 
antecedent eternity. 

Old Sophy was lying dead in the Dudley man- 
sion. K there were tears shed for her, they could 
not be bitter ones ; for she had lived out her fuU 
measure of days, and gone — who could help 
fondly believing it? — to rejoin her beloved mis- 
tress. They made a place for her at the foot of 
the two mounds. It was thus she would have 
chosen to sleep, and not to have wronged her 
humble devotion in life by asking to lie at the 
side of those whom she had served so long and 
faithfully. There were very few present at the 
simple ceremony. Helen Darley was one of 
these few. The old black woman had been her 
companion in all the kind offices of which she 
had been the ministering angel to Elsie. 


572 


ELSIE VENNEB. 


After it was all over, Helen was leaving with 
the rest, when Dudley Venner begged her to 
stay a little, and he would send her back : it was 
a long walk ; besides, he wished to say some 
things to her, which he had not had the oppor* 
tunity of speaking. Of course Helen could not 
refuse him ; there must be many thoughts com- 
ing into his mind which he would wish to share 
with her who had known his daughter so long 
and been with her in her last days. 

She returned into the great parlor with the 
wrought cornices and the medaUion-portraits on 
the ceiling. 

“ I am now alone in the world,’’ Dudley Ven- 
ner said. 

Helen must have known that before he spoke. 
But the tone in which he said it had so much 
meaning, that she could not find a word to an- 
swer him with. They sat in silence, which the 
old tall clock counted out in long seconds ; but 
it was silence which meant more than any 
words they had ever spoken. 

Alone in the world. Helen, the freshness of 
my life is gone, and there is little left of the few 
graces which in my younger days might have 
fitted me to win the love of women. Listen to 
me, — kindly, if you can; forgive me, at least. 
Half my life has been passed in constant fear 
and anguish, without any near friend to share 
my trials. My task is done now ; my fears have 
ceased to prey upon me ; the sharpness of earlj 


ELSIE VENNER. 


576 


Borrows has yielded something of its edge to 
time. You have bound me to you by gratitude 
in the tender care you have taken of my poor 
child. More than this. I must tell you all now, 
out of Ihe depth of this trouble through which 
I am passing. I have loved you from the mo- 
ment we first met ; and if my life has anything 
left worth accepting, it is yours. Will you take 
the offered gift?” 

Helen looked in his face, surprised, bewildered. 

“ This is not for me, — not for me,” she said. 
“ I am but a poor faded flower, not worth the 
gathering of such a one as you. No, no, — I 
have been bred to humble toil all my days, and 
I could not be to you what you ought to ask. 1 
am accustomed to a kind of loneliness and self- 
dependence. I have seen nothing, almost, of the 
world, such as you were born to move in. Leave 
me to my obscure place and duties ; I shall at 
least have peace; — and you — you wiil surely 
find in due time some one better fitted by Nature 
and training to make you happy.” 

“No, Miss Darley!” Dudley Venner said, al- 
most sternly. “ You must not speak to a man, 
who has lived through my experiences, of looking 
about for a new choice after his heart has once 
chosen. Say that you can never love me; say 
that I have lived too long to share your young 
fife ; say that sorrow has left nothing in me for 
Love to find his pleasure in; but do not mock 
me with the hope of a new affection for some un- 


574 


ELSIE VENNEB. 


known object. The first look of yours brought 
me to your side. The first tone of your voico 
sunk into my heart. From this moment my life 
must wither out or bloom anew. My home is 
desolate. Come under my roof and make it 
bright once more, — share my life with me, — or 
I shall give the halls of the old mansion to the 
bats and the owls, and wander forth alone with- 
out a hope or a friend ! ” 

To find herself with a man’s future at the dis- 
posal of a single word of hers I — a man like this, 
too, with a fascination for her against which she 
had tried to shut her heart, feeling that he lived 
in another sphere than hers, working as she was 
for her bread, a poor operative in the factory of 
a hard master and jealous overseer, the salaried 
drudge of Mr. Silas Peck ham! Why, she had 
thought he was grateful to her as a friend of his 
daughter ; she had even pleased herself with the 
feeling that he liked her, in her humble place, as 
a woman of some cultivation and many sympa- 
thetic points of relation with himself; but that he 
loved her, — that this deep, fine nature, in a man 
BO far removed from her in outward circum- 
stance, should have found its counterpart in one 
whom life had treated so coldly as herself, — 
that Dudley Venner should stake his happiness 
on a breath of hers, — poor Helen Barley’s, — it 
was all a surprise, a confusion, a kind of fear 
not wholly fearful. Ah, me ! women know what 
It iSi — that mist over the eyes, that trembling ic 


ELSIE VENNER. 


575 


he limbs, that faltering of the voice, that sweet, 
ihame-faced, unspoken confession of weakness 
which does not wish to be strong, that sudden 
overflow in the soul where thoughts loose their 
hold on each other and swim single and helpless 
in the flood of emotion, — women know what 
it is! 

No doubt she was a little frightened and a 
good deal bewildered, and that her sympathies 
were warmly excited for a friend to whom she 
had been brought so near, and whose loneliness 
she saw and pitied. She lost that calm self-pos- 
session she had hoped to maintain. 

“ If I thought that I could make you happy, — 
if I should speak from my heart, and not my rea- 
son, — I am but a weak woman, — yet if I can 
oe to you What can I say ? 

What more could this poor, dear Helen say ? 

“ Elbridge, harness the horses and take IVIiss 
Darley back to the school.” 

What conversation had taken place since Hel- 
en’s rhetorical failure is not recorded in the min- 
utes from which this narrative is constructed. But 
when the man who had been summoned had gone 
to get the carriage ready, Helen resumed some- 
thing she had been speaking of. 

‘‘ Not for the world . Everything must go on 
just as it has gone o.i, fo.- the present. There 
are proprieties to be consulted. I cannot be hard 
with you, that out of your very affliction has^ 


57G 


ELSIE \ENXER. 


sprung this — this — well — you must name it 
for me, — but the world will never listen to ex 
planations. I am to be Helen Darley, lady as- 
Bistaiit in Mr. Silas Peckham’s school, as .long as 
I see fit to hold my office. And I mean to at- 
tend to my scholars just as before ; so that I shall 
have ver} little time for visiting or seeing com- 
pany. I believe, though, you are one of the 
Trustees and a Member of the Examining Com- 
mittee ; so that, if you should happen to visit the 
school, I shall try to be civil to you.” 

Every lady sees, of course, that Helen was 
quite right ; but perhaps here and there one will 
think that Dudley Venner was all wrong, — that 
he was too hasty, — that he should have been 
too full of his recent grief for such a confession 
as he has just made, and the passion from which 
it sprung. Perhaps they do not understand the 
sudden recoil of a strong nature long compressecL 
Perhaps they have not studied the mystery of 
allotropism in the emotions of the human heart. 
Go to the nearest chemist and ask him to show 
you some of the dark-red phosphorus which will 
not burn without fierce heating, but at 500°, 
Fahrenheit, changes back again to the inflam- 
mable substance we know so well. Grief seems 
more like ashes than like fire ; but as grief has 
been love once, so it may become love again. 
This is emotional allotropism. 

Helen rede back to the Institute and inquired 
for Mr. Pe-ikham. She had not seen him during 


ELSIE VENNER. 


577 


the orief interval between her departure from the 
mansion-house and her return to Old Sophy’s 
funeral. There were various questions about the 
school she wished to ask. 

“ Oh, how’s your haiilth, IVIiss Darley ? ” Silas 
began. “ We’ve missed you consid’able. Glad 
to see you back at the post of dooty. Hope the 
Squire treated you hahnsomely, — liberal pecoon- 
iary compensation, — hey ? A’n’t much of a 
loser, I guess, by acceptin’ his propositions ? ” 

Helen blushed at this last question, as if Silas 
had meant something by it beyond asking what 
money she had received ; but his own double- 
meaning expression and her blush were too nice 
points for him to have taken cognizance of. He 
was engaged in a mental calculation as to the 
amount of the deduction he should make under 
the head of “ demage to the institootion,” — this 
iepending somewhat on that of the “ pecooniary 
compensation” she might have received for her 
services as the friend of Elsie Venner. 

So Helen slid back at once into her routine, 
the same faithful, patient creature she had al- 
ways been. But what was this new light which 
seemed to have kindled in her eyes ? What waa 
this look of peace, which nothing could disturb, 
which smiled serenely through all the little mean- 
nesses with which the daily life of the educational 
factory surrounded her, — wiiich not only made 
her seem resigned, but overflowed all her feat* 
ores with a thoughtful, subdued happiness ? Mr 

3T 


578 


ELSIE TENNER. 


Bernard did not know, — perhaps he did not 
guess. The inmates of the Dudley mansion were 
not scandalized by any mysterious visits of a 
veiled or unveiled lady. The vibrating tongues 
of the female youth of the Institute were 
not set in motion by the standing of an equipage 
at the gate, waiting for their lady teacher. The 
servants at the mansion did not convey numer- 
ous letters with superscriptions in a bold, manly 
hand, sealed with the arms of a well-known 
house, and directed to Miss Helen Darley; nor, 
on the other hand, did Hiram, the man from the 
lean streak in New Hampshire, carry sweet-smell- 
ing, rose-hued, many-layered, criss-crossed, fine- 
stitch-lettered packages of note-paper directed to 
Dudley Venner, Esq., and all too scanty to hold 
that incredible expansion of the famous three 
words which a woman was born to say, — that 
perpetual miracle which astonishes all the go- 
betweens who wear their shoes out in carrying a 
woman’s infinite variations on the theme, “ I love 
you.” 

But the reader must remember that there are 
walks in country-towns where people are liable 
to meet by accident, and that the hollow of an 
old tree has served the purpose of a post-office 
sometimes ; so that he has her choice (to divide 
the pronouns impartially) of various hypotheses 
to account for the new glory of happiness which 
seemed to have irradiated our poor Helen’s feat- 
ures, as if her dreary life were awakening in th« 
dawn of a blessed future. 


ELSIE VENNER. 


579 


With all the alleviations which have been 
ninted at, Mr. Dudley Venner thought that the 
days and the weeks had never moved so slowly 
as through the last period of the autumn that was 
passing. Elsie had been a perpetual source of 
anxiety to him, but still she had been a com 
panion. He could not mourn for her; for he 
felt that she was safer with her mother, in that 
world where there are no more sorrows and dan- 
gers, than she could have been with him. But 
as he sat at his window and looked at the three 
mounds, the loneliness of the great house made 
it seem more like the sepulchre than these nar- 
row dwellings where his beloved and her daugh- 
ter lay close to each other, side by side, — Cat- 
alina, the bride of his youth, and Elsie, the child 
whom he had nurtured, with poor Old Sophy, 
who had followed them like a black shadow, at 
their feet, under the same soft turf, sprinkled with 
the brown autumnal leaves. It was not good 
for him to be thus alone. How should he ever 
iive through the long months of November and 
December ? 

The months of November and December did, 
in some way or other, get rid of themselves at 
ast, bringing with them the usual events of vil- 
lage-life and a few unusual ones. Some of the 
geologists had been up to look at the great 
ilide, of which they gave those prolix accounts 
which everybody remembers who read the scien- 
tific journals of the time. The engineers re- 


580 


ELSIE VENNER. 


ported that there was little probability of an) 
further convulsion along the line of rocks which 
overhung the more thickly settled part of the 
town. The naturalists drew up a paper on the 
“ Probable Extinction of the Orotalus Durissm 
in the Township of Rockland.” The engage- 
ment of the Widow Rowens to a Little Million- 
ville merchant was announced, — “ Sudding ^n’ 
unexpected,” Widow Leech said, — “ waMiy, or 
she wouldn’t ha’ looked at him, — fifty year old, 
if he is a day, ’w’ ha?nH got a white hair in his 
head,^^ The Reverend Chauncy Fair weather 
had publicly announced that he was going to 
join the Roman Catholic communion, — not so 
much to the surprise or consternation of the re- 
ligious world as he had supposed. Several old 
ladies forthwith proclaimed their intention of 
following him ; but, as one or two of them were 
deaf, and another had been threatened with an 
attack of that mild, but obstinate complaint, de^ 
mentia senilis^ many thought it was not 60 much 
the force of his arguments as a kind of ten- 
dency to jump as the bellwether jumps, weU 
known in flocks not included in the Christian 
fold. His bereaved congregation immediately 
began pulling candidates on and off, like nev^ 
boots, on trial. Some pinched in t^der places , 
Bome were too loose ; some were too square- 
toed ; some were too coarse, and didn’t please 
some were too thin, and wouldn’t last; — ia 
thort, they couldn’t possibly find a fit. At last 


ELSIE VENimi. 


581 


people began to drop in to hear old Doctor 
lioneywood. They were quite surprised to find 
what a human old gentleman he was, and went 
back and told the others, that, instead of being 
a case of confluent sectarianism, as they sup- 
posed, the good old minister had been so well 
vaccinated with charitable virus that he was 
now a true, open-souled Christian of the mildest 
type. The end of all which was, that the liberal 
people went over to the old minister almost in 
a body, just at the time that Deacon Shearei 
and the “ Vinegar-Bible ” party split off, and thaf 
not long afterwards they sold their own meet 
ing-house to the malecontents, so that Deacon 
Soper used often to remind Colonel Sprowle of 
his wish that “ our little man and him [the Rev. 
erend Doctor] would swop pulpits,” and tell him 
it had “ pooty nigh come trew.” — But this is 
anticipating the course of events, which were 
much longer in coming about ; for we have but 
ust got through that terrible long month, as Mr. 
Dudley Venner found it, of December. 

On the first of January, Mr. Silas Peckham 
was in the habit of settling his quarterly ac- 
counts, and making such new arrangements as 
nis convenience or interest dictated. New- Year 
Was a holiday at the Institute. No doubt thie 
accounted for Helen’s being dressed so charra- 
ingly^ — always, to be sure in her own simple 
vay, but yet with such a true lady’s air, thal 
she looked fit to be the mistress of any mansion 
\n ^he land. 


ELSIE VENDER. 


582 

She was in the parlor alone, a little before 
noon, when Mr. Peckham came in. 

“ I’m ready to settle my accaount with yon 
now, Miss Darley,” said Silas. 

“ As you please, Mr. Peckham,” Helen an- 
swered, very graciously. 

‘‘ Before payin’ you your selary,” the Principal 
continued, “ I wish to come to an understandin’ 
as io the futur’. I consider that I’ve been 
payin’ high, very high, for the work you do. 
Women’s wages can’t be expected to do more 
than feed and clothe ’em, as a gineral thing, 
with a little savin’, in case of sickness, and to 
bury ’em, if they break daown, as all of ’em 
are liable to do at any time. K I a’n’t misin- 
formed, you not only support yourself out of 
my establishment, but likewise relatives of yours, 
who I don’t know that I’m called upon to feed and 
clothe. There is a young woman, not burdened 
with destitute relatives, has signified that she 
would be glad to take your dooties for less pecoon- 
iary compensation, by a consid’able amaount, than 
you now receive. I shall be willin’, however, to 
retain your services at sech redooced rate as we 
shall fix upon, — provided sech redooced rate be 
as low or lower than the same services can be 
obtained elsewhere.” 

“As you please, Mr. Peckham,” Helen answered, 
with a smile so sweet that the Principal (who 
of course had trumped up this opposition-teacher 
for the occasion) said to himself she v/oulc 


ELSIE VENNER. 


583 


itand being cut down a quarter, perhaps a half, 
of her salary. 

“ Here is your accaount, Miss Darley, and the 
balance doo you,” said Silas Peckham, handing 
her a paper and a small roll of infectious-fla- 
vored bills wrapping six poisonous coppers of 
the old coinage. 

She took the paper and began looking at it. 
She could not quite make up her mind to touch 
the feverish bills with the cankering coppers in 
them, and left them airing themselves on the 
table. 

The document she held ran as follows: 

Silas Peckham, Esq., Principal of the Apollinean Institute, 

In Account with Helen Darley, Assist. Teacher. 
Dr. Cr. 

To Salary for quarter By Deduction for ab- 
ending Jan. 1st, @ sence, 1 week 3 days $10.00 

$75 per quarter . $75.00 “ Board, lodging, etc., 

for 10 days, @ 75 
cts. per day ... 7.50 

“Damage to Institu- 
tion by absence of 
teacher from duties, 


say 


“ Stationery furnished 

43 

“ PDstage-stamp . . 

01 

“ Balance due Helen 


Darley 

32.06 

$75.00 


Bockland, Jan. 1st, 1859. 

Now Helen had her own private reasons for 


584 


£LSliii V JiN!N 


wishing to receive the small sum which was due 
her at this time without any unfair deduction 

— reasons which we need not inquire into too 
particularly, as we may be very sure that they 
were right and womanly. So, when she looked 
over this account of Mr. Silas Peckham’s, and 
saw that he had contrived to pare down hei 
salary to something less than half its stipulated 
amount, the look which her countenance wore 
was as near to that of righteous indignation as 
her gentle features and soft blue eyes would 
admit of its being. 

“ Why, Mr. Peckham ” she said, “ do you mean 
this ? If I am of so much value to you that you 
must take off twenty-five dollars for ten days’ ab- 
sence, how is it that my salary is to be cut down 
to less than seventy-five dollars a quarter, if I re- 
main here ? ” 

“ I gave you fair notice,” said Silas. “ I have 
a minute of it I took down immed’ately after the 
intervoo.” 

He lugged out his large pocket-book with the 
strap going all round it, and took from it a slip of 
paper which confirmed his statement. 

“ Besides,” he added, slyly, “ I presoom yon 
have received a liberal pecooniary compensation 
from Squire Venner for nussin’ his daughter.” 

Helen was looking over the biU while he wai 
ipeaking. 

“ Board and lodging for ten days, Mr. Peckham 

— whose board and lodging, pray ? ” 


ELSIE VENNEIl 


585 


The door opened before Silas Peckham could 
wiswer, and Mr. Bernard walked into the parlor. 
Helen was holding the bill in her hand, looking 
as any woman ought to look who has been at 
once wronged and insulted. 

“ The last turn of the thumbscrew ! ” said IVIr. 
Bernard to himself. “ What is it, Helen ? You 
look troubled.” 

She handed him the account. 

He looked at the footing of it. Then he 
looked at the items. Then he looked at Silas 
Peckham. 

At this moment Silas was sublime. He was 
BO transcerrdently unconscious of the emotions 
going on in Mr. Bernard’s mind at the moment, 
that he had only a single thought. 

“ The accaount’s correc’ly cast, I presoom ; — 
if the’ ’s any mistake of figgers or addin’ ’em up, 
it’ll be made all right. Ever^ thing’s accordin’ to 
agreement. The minute written immed’ately af- 
ter the intervoo is here in my possession.” 

Mr. Bernard looked at Helen. Just what would 
have happened to Silas Peckham, as he stood 
then and there, but for the interposition of a 
merciful Providence, nobody knows or ever will 
know ; for at that moment steps were heard upon 
the stairs, and Hiram threw open the parlor-door 
for Mr. Dudley Venner to enter. 

He saluted them all gracefully with the good- 
wishes of the season, and each of them returned 
ais compliment, — Helen blushing fearfully, of 


586 


ELSIE VENNER. 


course, but not particularly noticed in her embar- 
rassment by more than one, 

Silas Peckham reckoned with perfect confi- 
dence on his Trustees, who had always said 
what he told them to, and done what he wanted. 
It was a good chance now to show off his power, 
and, by letting his instructors know the unstable 
tenure of their offices, make it easier to settle his 
accounts and arrange his salaries. There was 
nothing very strange in Mr. VennePs calling ; he 
was one of the Trustees, and this was New Year’s 
Day. But he had called just at the lucky moment 
for Mr. Peckham’s object. 

“ I have thought some of makin’ changes in the 
department of instruction,” he began. “ Several 
accomplished teachers have applied to me, who 
would be glad of sitooations. I understand 
that there never have been so many fust-rate 
teachers, male and female, out of employment 
as doorin’ the present season. K I can make 
sahtisfahctory arrangements with my present 
corpse of teachers, I shall be glad to do so ; 
otherwise I shell, with the permission of the 
Trustees, make sech noo arrangements as cir- 
cumstahnces compel.” 

“ You may make arrangements for a new as- 
sistant in my department, Mr. Peckham,” said 
Mr. Bernard, “at once, — this day, — this hour 
I am not safe to be trusted with your person five 
minutes out of this lady’s presence, — of whonr 
* beg pardon for this strong language. Mr. Ven 


ELSIE VENI5ER. 


587 


Her, 1 must beg you, as one of the Trustees of 
this Institution, to look at the manner in wliich 
its Principal has attempted to swindle this faith- 
ful teacher whose toils and sacrifices and self- 
devotion to the school have made it all that it is, 
n spite of this miserable trader's incompetence. 
Will you look at the paper I hold ? ’’ 

Dudley Venner took the account and read it 
through, without changing a feature. Then he 
turned to Silas Peckham. 

“ You may make arrangements for a new as- 
sistant in the branches this lady has taught. Miss 
Helen Barley is to be my wife. I had hoped to 
have announced this news in a less abrupt and 
ungraceful manner. But I came to tell you with 
my own lips what you would have learned before 
evening from my friends in the village.” 

Mr. Bernard went to Helen, who stood silent, 
with downcast eyes, and took her hand warmly, 
hoping she might find all the happiness she de- 
served. Then he turned to Dudley Venner, and 
said, — 

She is a queen, but has never found it out 
The world has nothing nobler than this deal 
woman, whom you have discovered in the dis- 
guise of a teacher. God bless her and you!” 

Dudley Venner returned his friendly grasp^ 
Vi^dthout answering a word in articulate speech. 

Silas remained dumb and aghast for a brief 
ipace. Coming to himself a little, he thought 
there might have been some mistake about the 


588 


ELSIE VENNEK. 


items, — would like to have Miss Darley’s bill 
returned, — would make it all right, — had no 
idee that Squire Venner had a special int’rest 
ill rvliss Darley, — was sorry he had given of- 
fence, — if he might take that bill and look it 
over — — 

^ No, Mr. Peckham,” said Mr. Dudley Venner 
“ there will be a full meeting of the Board next 
week, and the bill, and such evidence with refer- 
ence to the management of the Institution and 
the treatment of its instructors as Mr. Langdon 
sees fit to bring forward will be laid before 
them.” 

Miss Helen Darley became that very day the 
guest of Miss Arabella Thornton, the Judge’s 
daughter. Mr. Bernard made his appearance a 
week or two later at the Lectures, where the Pro- 
fessor first introduced him to the reader. 

He stayed after the class had left the room. 

“ Ah, Mr. Langdon ! how do you do ? Very 
glad to see you back again. How have you been 
since our correspondence on Fascination and 
other curious scientific questions ? ” 

It was the Professor who spoke, — whom the 
reader will recognize as myself, the teller of this 
story. 

I have been well,” Mr. Bernard answered, 
with a serious look which invited a further ques* 
tion. 

“ I hope you have had none of those painfa 
or dangerous experiences you seemed to be think 


ELSIE VENNER. 


5X9 


ing of when you wrote ; at any rate, you have 
escaped having your obituary written.” 

“ I have seen some things worth remembering. 
Shall I call on you this evening and teU you 
about them ? ” 

“ I shall be most happy to see you.” 

This was the way in which I, the Professor, 
became acquainted with some of the leading 
events of this story. They interested me suffi- 
ciently to lead me to avail myself of all those 
other extraordinary methods of obtaining infor- 
mation weU known to writers of narrative. 

Mr. Langdon seemed to me to have gained in 
seriousness and strength of character by his late 
experiences. He threw his whole energies into 
his studies with an effect which distanced all his 
previous efforts. Remembering my former hint, 
he employed his spare hours in writing for the 
annual prizes, both of which he took by a unani- 
mous vote of the judges. Those who heard him 
read his Thesis at the Medical Commencement 
will not soon forget the impression made by his 
fine personal appearance and manners, nor the 
Viniversal interest excited in the audience, as he 
read, with his beautiful enunciation, that striking 
paper entitled “ Unresolved Nebulae in Vital Sci- 
ence.” It was a general remark of the Faculty, 
— and old Doctor Kittredge, who had come down 
on purpose to hear Mr. Langdon, heartily agreed 
to it, — that there had never been a diploma filled 


590 


£LSLE) V£!N^JjiR> 


up, since the institution which conferred upon 
him the degree of Doctor Medicince was founded, 
which carried with it more of promise to the pro- 
fession than that which bore the name of 


i^trnartrus Munition. 


ELSIE VENNER. 


591 


CHAPTER XXXIL 

CONCLUSION. 

Mr. Bernard Langdon had no sooner taken 
his degree, than, in accordance with the advice 
of one of his teachers whom he frequently con- 
sulted, he took an office in the heart of the city 
where he had studied. He had thought of begin- 
ning in a suburb or some remoter district of the 
city proper. 

“ No,” said his teacher, — to wit, myself, — 
‘‘don’t do any such thing. You are made for 
the best land of practice ; don’t hamper yourself 
with an outside constituency, such as belongs to 
a practitioner of the second class. When a fellow 
like you chooses his beat, he must look ahead a 
little. Take care of all the poor that apply to 
you, but leave the half-pay classes to a different 
style of doctor, — the people who spend one half 
their time in taking care of their patients, and the 
other half in squeezing out their money. Go for 
the swell-fronts and south-exposure houses; the 
folks inside are just as good as other people, and 
the pleasantest, on the whole, to take care of. 
They must have somebody, and they like a gen- 
tleman best. Don’t throw yourself aw 


592 


ELSIE TENNER. 


have a good presence and pleasing manners. 
You wear white linen by inherited instinct 
You can pronounce the word view. You have 
EiU the elements of success ; go and take it. Be 
polite and generous, but don’t undervalue your* 
self. You will be useful, at any rate ; you may 
just as well be happy, while you are about it 
The highest social class furnishes incomparably 
the best patients, taking them by and large. Be- 
sides, when they won’t get well and bore you to 
death, you can send ’em off to travel. JVIind me 
now, and take the tops of your sparrowgrass. 
Somebody must have ’em, — why shouldn’t you ? 
If you don’t take your chance, you’ll get the butt- 
ends as a matter of course.” 

Mr. Bernard talked like a young man full of 
noble sentiments. He wanted to be useful to his 
fellow-beings. Their social differences were noth- 
ing to him. He would never court the rich, — 
he would go where he was called. He would 
rather save the life of a poor mother of a family 
than that of half a dozen old gouty millionnaires 
whose heirs had been yawning and stretching 
these ten years to get rid of them. 

“ Generous emotions ! ” I exclaimed. ‘‘ Cher- 
ish ’em ; cling to ’em till you are fifty, till you are 
seventy, till you are ninety! But do as I tel] 
you, — strike for the best circle of practice, and 
you’ll be sure to get it!” 

Mr. Langdon did as I told him, — took a gen 
teel oflice, furnished it neatlv dressed with a 


ELSIE VENNEB. 


593 


certain elegance, soon made a pleasant circle of 
acquaintances, and began to work his way into 
the right kind of business. I missed him, how- 
ever, for some days, not long after he had opened 
his ofSce. On his return, he told me he had been 
up at Rockland, by special invitation, to attend 
the wedding of Mr. Dudley Venner and Miss 
Helen Darley. He gave me a full account of 
the ceremony, which I regret that I cannot relate 
in full. “ Helen looked like an angel,” — that, I 
am sure, was one of his expressions. As for her 
dress, I should like to give the details, but am 
afraid of committing blunders, as men always do, 
when they undertake to describe such matters. 
White dress, anyhow, — that I am sure of, — 
with orange-flowers, and the most wonderful lace 
veil that was ever seen or heard of. The Rever* 
end Doctor Honeywood performed the ceremony, 
of course. The good people seemed to have for- 
gotten they ever had had any other minister, — 
except Deacon Shearer and his set of malecon- 
tents, who were doing a dull business in the 
meeting-house lately occupied by the Reverend 
Mr. Fairweather. 

“ Who was at the wedding ? ” 

“Everybody, pretty much. They wanted to 
keep it quiet, but it was of no use. Married at 
church. Front pews, old Doctor Kittredge and 
all the mansion-house people and distinguished 
strangers, — Colonel Sprowle and family, includ- 
ing Matilda’s young gentleman, a graduate of 
gne of the firesh-water colleges, — Mrs. Piokins 

SI 


594 


ELSIE VENNER. 


(late Widow Rowens) and husband, — Deacon 
Soper and numerous parishioners. A little near- 
er tlie door, Abel, the Doctor’s man, and Elbridge, 
who drove them to church in the family-coach 
Father Fairweather, as they all call him now, 
(?ame in late with Father Me Shane.” 

And Silas Peckham ? ” 

“ Oh, Silas had left The School and Rockland4 
Cut up altogether too badly in the examination 
instituted by the Trustees. Had removed over 
to Tamarack, and thought of renting a large 
house and ‘ farming ’ the town-poor.” 

Some time after this, as I was walking with a 
young friend along by the swell-fronts and south 
exposures, whom should I see but Mr. Bernard 
Langdon, looking remarkably happy, and keeping 
step by the side of a very handsome and singu- 
larly well-dressed young lady? He bowed and 
lifted his hat as we passed. 

“ Who is that pretty girl my young doctor has 
got there ? ” I said to my companion. 

“ Who is that ? ” he answered. “ You don’t 
know ? Why, that is neither more nor less than 
Miss Letitia Forrester, daughter of — of — why, 
thevgreat banking-firm, you know, Bilyuns Broth- 
ers & Forrester. Got acquainted with her in the 
country, they say. There’s a story that they’re 
engaged, or like to be, if the firm consents.” 

«OhI” I said. 

I did not like the look of it in the least. Too 
young, — too young Has not taken any position 


ELSIE VENNER. 


595 


yet. No right to ask for the hand of Eilyuns 
Brothers & Co.’s daughter. Besides, it will spoil 
him for practice, if he marries a rich girl before 
he has formed habits of work. 

I looked in at his office the next day. A box 
of white kids was lying open on the table. A 
three-cornered note, directed in a very delicate 
lady’s-hand, was distinguishable among a heap 
of papers. I was just going to call him to ac- 
count for his proceedings, when he pushed the 
three-cornered note aside and took up a letter 
with a great corporation-seal upon it. He had 
received the offer of a professor’s chair in an 
ancient and distinguished institution. 

“ Pretty well for three-and-twenty, my boy,” 
I said. “ I suppose you’ll think you must be 
married one of these days, if you accept this 
office.” 

Mr. Langdon blushed. — There had been sto- 
ries about him, he knew. His name had been 
mentioned in connection with that of a very 
charming young lady. The current reports were 
not true. He had met this young lady, and been 
much pleased with her, in the country, at the 
house of her grandfather, the Reverend Doctor 
Honeywood, — you remember Miss Letitia For- 
rester, whom I have mentioned repeatedly ? On 
coming to town, he found his country-acquaint- 
ance in a social position which seemed to dis- 
courage his continued intimacy. He had discov- 
ered, however, that he was a not unwelcome 
viftilor. and had kept up friendly relations with 


596 


ELSIE VENNER. 


her. But there was no truth in the current res 
ports, — none at all. 

Some months had passed, after this visit, when 
I happened one evening to stroll into a box in one 
of the principal theatres of the city. A small 
party sat on the seats before me ; a middle-aged 
gentleman and his lady, in front, and directly 
behind them my young doctor and the same very 
handsome young lady I had seen him walking 
with on the sidewalk before the swell-fronts and 
south-exposures. As Professor Langdon seemed 
to be very much taken up with his companion, 
and both of them looked as if they were enjoying 
themselves, I determined not to make my pres- 
ence known to my young friend, and to withdraw 
quietly after feasting my eyes with the sight of 
them for a few minutes. 

^ It looks as if something might come of it,” 
I said to myself. At that moment the young 
lady lifted her arm accidentally in such a way 
that the light fell upon the clasp of a chain which 
encircled her wrist. My eyes filled with tears as 
I read upon the clasp, in sharp-cut Italic letters, 
E r. They were tears at once of sad remem- 
brance and of joyous anticipation ; for the orna- 
ment on which I looked was the double pledge 
of a dead sorrow and a living affection. It was 
the golden bracelet, — the parting-gift of Elsi# 
Venner. 


•|3 0 



THB END. 



























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